A Darker Place
by scorpionmother
Summary: Vanessa is alone in the house in London surrounded by memories of Ethan. She is denied the darkness and has been cast into the light of his leaving. Trying to find peace she escapes to the moors only to be haunted here too by figures from her past. I have marked this complete but may return to it as it might still have a few inches of leg still.
1. Chapter 1

It was the clarity of the weeks after he left that frightened her the most. The fact that in her darkest hour, torn from him and separated from her God, she could, for what it seemed the very first time, see clearly. At a time when she needed the solitude of the dark, the comfort of oblivion, her eyes had been forced open. It was as if scales had been lifted from her sight at the moment she needed to be blind and she shrunk away from the glare that mocked her pain. Her pain, which was sharper than razors and tore deeper than his claws ever would have. The light was her curse because it only served to illuminate the fact that he had gone and she walked alone. Where the light is at its brightness the darkest shadows are cast and that is what she was now, a dark shadow of the self she had found with him.

She wandered wraith like around the house that suddenly seemed full of light, every corner luminous, every object that he had ever touched seemed to radiate a glow and her tortured soul screamed and tried to turn its back, to curl in on itself and disappear into blackness only to be forced back into the light of his absence. Every room she entered vibrated with echoes of him. His eyes as they turned to look at her, the touch of his hands against her skin, his smile which only ever seemed to reach his eyes when directed at her.

She had tried to hate him. Tried to pollute his memory to blacken his image, destroy his humanity but every effort only served to remind her of his courage, his loyalty, his selflessness. His love for her. The reason he had left was because he loved her.

If she had been able to pray she would have got down on her knees and remained there until they were bloody sores to ask to descend into madness, to wrap herself safely within a silken shawl of insanity. But every day she remained alone, without him she seemed to become saner in the light of his leaving.

It was only in her dreams that madness seemed to possess her. Fragmented images of him swarmed into her mind like insects, scuttling, scratching against her fevered brain. There was no clear sight, it was like peering through a filth-crusted window trying to recognise truth in the silhouettes that flickered like phantoms. She sensed pain but could not separate it from her own. In desperation she turned to the cards to try and sharpen her visions but for once they were crowded with contradictions, with no obvious reason for the patterns, lacking the symmetry that she so needed to find within them. They offered no reassurances and no answers either, they were voiceless.

And so she waited alone, illuminated in the harsh white light of abandonment that stripped her to her very bones, left her heart and soul exposed and adrift in a sanity that became in its terrible clarity, to feel like the depths of madness.

Lost in the light it took her weeks to realised she had to leave the terrible house where his memory left her no hiding place, to lock the doors and walk away. To return to the moors where she would be able to saturate herself in the darkness of the terrible deeds that she had committed. Deeds that he prophesied would destroy her soul; where his voice had welcomed her to the night. Only there could she begin to know herself again; the self that he had loved, despite her sins.

She had avoided the room in which he had slept knowing that there the light would be at its harshest but she was unable to resist its lure on the morning of her departure.

Her heart clenched and she trembled slightly on the threshold. The room, as she had known was flooded with light, dust moats lazily circling in the air but unexpectedly she felt welcomed by it unlike in any of the other rooms of the house. The rightness of it, being where she had felt safest was somehow a comfort to her. There was remembrance of him in that room, it was as if the very objects somehow held his essence in their fibres but they did not haunt her as they did in the other spaces in the house. Here she had the feeling that although more than a month had past since their last interlude, that he had only just exited the space. The way he had left the room did not tell the story of a man who had no plans to return, had walked away entirely despite the letter he'd written. Clothes were draped over the chair, a book lay open on the bureau and on the desk the pen with which he had written his last words to her had been left on the blotter the ink, dark as lies dried on the tip. Slowly she entered her fingertips marking a trail of recollection over the discarded items. The smooth cotton of his shirts triggering the memory of how his body felt against her cheek as he'd held her against him after she'd raced into the safety of his arms when she'd been so afraid. Her gaze traced over the few other personal belongings, all of the best quality but well used, a shabby history of the man who had come to her in darkness but left her alone in the light.

Her eyes finally came to rest on the bed and there she noticed something that at first made her blood run cold. His guns were abandoned on the counterpane, the gun belt laid underneath. The fact he'd departed without his guns which she always felt to be an extension of himself were the concrete evidence that she had tried to avoid, the proof that he meant never to return. The cruel light of this realization was enough she knew to send her spiraling into the blessed arms of insanity and her soul threw its arms out in welcome. But the longed for release did not come because the light in that moment was kind and focused her attention on a single detail she'd previously missed. The firearms had not been abandoned, they had been carefully placed and that placement was to her eyes the physical manifestation of his promise to always keep her safe. The muzzle's of the pair were joined the grips facing outwards to form a letter V. He had left them so she could protect herself but also she hoped, for safekeeping. She picked one up, the weight of it felt reassuring and almost like she held a part of him, the best part of him. She left the room without a backwards glance, the guns and belt clutched in her hands.

At first the escape she hoped to find by leaving London and returning to the cottage on the moors seemed to evade her. The light oozed over the barren landscape consuming its somber terrain like a cancer. The wildness of the land appeared diseased, like an age-ravaged beauty in its unforgiving harshness. She despaired, feeling even more abandoned and knowing that she had bought this sickness to the place where she'd always felt safest and most at peace, tainting even the memory of her beloved mentor. Everywhere she looked, inside the cottage and outside in the silence of the wide spaces the memory of him was there, teaching her to shoot, helping her in the garden, chopping down the terrible tree, dancing, burying the man they'd killed together. There were times she wanted to tear open her skull and gouge her brain out to rid herself of the torment of his memory. If she was never going to see him again and as the seasons turned her hope began to diminish, she needed to purge herself of them and yet in the part of her that only accepted truths she knew without them she knew she would be less human and so she suffered in the light of remembrances. The sun rose and set, the moon sailed her silver light through heaven's darkness and the seasons continued to turn and although the pain of his loss remained unbearable she accepted it and wore it like an open wound and in that she found a modicum of peace.

The night was at its blackest when she was awoken from her drugged slumber by a heavy knocking on the door of the cottage. She had sat for hours in the chair in front of the fire wrapped in the course blanket from the settle. There were softer ones but she perversely enjoyed the itch against her skin; it gave her a sense of reality which at times she started to lose especially if, as tonight, she had smoked a lot of the hashish that she used to dull the edges of her pain. Eventually she'd consumed enough for her to know that a dreamless sleep would follow and she had glided up the rough wooden steps too intoxicated to undress, and fallen onto the bed. She lay for a moment wondering if it were in fact paranoia but the banging began again – this time more insistent followed by a rattling of the door handle. She slid from the bed and from the table next to the bed she removed the gun she'd taken from London and began down the stairs. Her mind was sharp, she never seemed to suffer the effects of the drugs she consumed in that way and despite the fact she had retrieved the gun, she felt no danger from the presence outside her door. Her door was, as in the time of her mentor, a place of refuge for the poor unfortunate girls who'd fallen for the charms of a boy who'd then left them ruined. She refused to cut them, offering only charms of protection and hope but still they came and it was becoming harder to refuse their needs. The door shook under another onslaught of violent knocking and it was then she began to hear a voice. The voice that she was the most familiar with in the entire world, very possibly one of the first voices she'd ever heard. As she raced to the door her mind raced, how had be found her and why was he there?

She flung open the door and found herself enfolded into the arms of the man who had been father, teacher and tormentor to her.

"Vanessa, thank God, thank God you're here and safe!"

Sir Malcolm's voice throbbed with emotion and it thrilled her heart to see, feel and hear him, in her grief she had forgotten how much she had missed him.

She tried to pull him into the cottage but he stayed her hands gently.

"Go inside by the fire." was all he said before turning and plunging into the darkness.

She did not know quite why, almost for the first time in her life she did exactly as he told her, but she did. She left the door open and returned to stand to the side of the fire. Despite the initial shock of seeing him after so long she felt calm a sense of peace wash over her. She could only think that he was there to give her bad news. News that might enable her to find the darkness she so craved, to be free of the eternal light and the suffering it caused her.

Sir Malcolm and another man, a stranger, appeared suddenly without warning at the door but they were not alone. In between them they supported, half carried a broken figure. He radiated all of human suffering and she knew even before he lifted his cruelly shaven head that the abused soul that stood before her was all that was left of Ethan Chandler.

A harsh cry tore from her lips at the sight of the man she loved and who had left her to walk his doomed path. He was filthy, dressed in rags, his face gaunt, emaciated to the point of death. His eyes when he finally looked up were red-rimmed, dead looking and spoke of horrors that no language would have the vocabulary to describe. Even as her heart leapt at the sight of him it recoiled from the lost and broken man that filled her eyes and a cold rage pieced her, her soul screamed for retribution for him, for them. But that was for another future, in this present she could not allow it to mar the joy she felt at laying her eyes on him for the first time in what seemed like forever. Her hands ached to touch him to reassure herself that he was real that this wasn't some kind of cruel dream that her tortured soul had manifested out of longing. She moved towards him carefully and for the first time he seemed to see her. Some kind of recognition touched his vacant eyes and his blistered and cracked lips seem to try to form a word before, without warning, he collapsed and would have fallen hard to the stone and earth floor without the support of the two men. She darted forward laying her hand against his throat scared with sores and marks that made her think he'd been tortured physically as well as mentally. Her deft fingers found his pulse weak but steady and she exhaled in relief, suddenly aware that she hadn't really breathed since seeing him.

"Take him upstairs."

She darted ahead, up the stairs pulling back the sheets on her bed while Sir Malcolm and the unknown man struggled with his dead weight up the stairs. They pulled his prone form onto the low, small bed and she covered him gently with the sheets and blankets her hand brushing softly over his mutilated face. She could not believe that he was actually here with her, that whatever horrors he'd faced he still breathed and she would do everything in her power to keep it that way, to heal his every hurt.

She heard Sir Malcolm thank the man and tell him to wait for him downstairs but she could not tear her gaze away from the ruin of her lover that lay like death in her bed.

"Vanessa, I need to tell you something."

She heard in the careful measure of his voice and words that he wanted to protect her and yet, and she was grateful for it, would tell her the truth or as much as he could.

"You need to tell me everything." she said as drew up a chair to sit beside the bed. "Where did you find him?"

She heard him take a breath and the pause stretched until he answered her with the worst truth she could have heard.

"In a lunatic asylum."


	2. Chapter 2

It is only the good memories that you have to sift through your brain to recall, the worst always find you and those two words triggered images and feelings that she had long struggled to erase. Rough hands stripping her to her flesh forcing her into water colder than death. The torturous scrape of a blunt razor over and over her scalp. The prick of needles and intrusion of fluids that left her less than human. The fear that it would never end, and yet the obsene need for it to continue because it would take it all away. And all the time the whiteness, the clinical smell of horror and pain that permeated it. Vanessa Ives knew the colour of madness and death was not black but pure, clean white.

She was unaware of how deep she'd fallen until she felt hard hands grasping her shoulders, her reflexes causing her to struggle, to fight to get away, to escape until a familiar voice broke through the vision relegating it again to memory.

"Vanessa, I know, I know your pain and what you suffered. But believe me when I tell you that was heaven compared to where I found him. I wish to God it had been in the same place, as I know you were held. Christ it was terrible. I can hardly believe that institutions like that still exist. Vanessa he was brutalised mind and body. Kept like an animal. Chained in his own filth. Every part of his humanity stripped until he didn't live only existed lower than an animal." Sir Malcolm spoke without emotion trying she knew to save her from some of the horror of his words and she knew that the picture he painted in no way truly described that which he had actually seen.

"So he's mad?" Instinctively her hand raised to her own temple to brush, with delicate touch the dent the drill had made in her own skull in the name of sanity.

"I don't truly know. His actions since I had him released prove little. He has practically been comatose but there is much not totally sane about him. I can't say why but it is as if there is something inside him. Something so close to the surface that could any moment burst out and then I really don't know. He could be dangerous. He could be more dangerous than anything we have yet faced. I almost didn't bring him here but….." He paused but his eyes held hers and in them she saw for the first time a flicker of hope.

"Sir Malcolm, tell me. Why did you bring him here if you think his presence puts me at risk?"

It concerned her that even he now guessed that there was something not totally human about Ethan that he carried in him some kind of sigma, one that she knew better than anyone. Her mind retreated back to Evelyn Poole's den of dolls and the sight of a beast in that murderous place mutated, changed and terrifying, blood dripping from fangs and claws. The cold terror she felt as she had gazed into the amber eyes full of hate and then a change. A flicker of humanity and her realisation that this wasn't a monster that threatened her. That the creature who stood ready to strike her life from her body was a man, and not just any man, a man she trusted above all others; a man she loved. Who in a sacred second recognised her but shunned her touch and ran from her. Who as a man that next day repeated the action, refusing her acceptance and understanding, leaving her bereft and alone. Sir Malcolm's voice broke through her recollections.

"Because everywhere he could, scratch, draw, trace onto every surface he'd written one thing like a prayer, over and over again. It was barely recognisable but I knew. It was your name. Your name over and over like a thread of light in his shattered world."

She suppressed the emotion that rose up suddenly inside her threatening to overwhelm her. But she knew that this was no time for relief there were still answers to be had and decisions to be made.

Long into the night she and Sir Malcolm talked. He gave her what background that he had. Ethan had walked away from her that day to Scotland Yard and handed himself over to an Inspector Rusk who it seemed was waiting for him. How he had served him extradition papers and had within two days incarcerated him on a steamer back to America. It then seemed that a few days out from port a terrible storm had struck, the ship had floundered and sunk with no supposedly no survivors. He had learnt this from his contacts in the force but after this the story became less clear. Days later a fishing vessel heading back to England logged that it had picked up a man near to death floating on wreckage but on reaching port during a full moon he had suddenly gone mad and attacked his rescuers. Due to his weakened state he had been overcome after causing almost fatal injuries to a crewmember and had been committed to an asylum. Sir Malcolm had only come to know the story because a young orderly who was fascinated by the hunt for the source of the Nile had overheard his ravings, recognised Sir Malcolm's name and wrote to him at the house in London. He had only received the letter a week ago and had intrigued, travelled straight there.

She sat in the darkness her arms wrapped around her thin body her eyes resting unmoving on the wreckage of the man who lay so still, listening to this tale of unbelievable coincidences. Yet something in her knew the truth of it. Her insane dreams and the uncertainty of the cards now made sense. But still one question remained.

"How is he here? What did you have to do to release him?"

Sir Malcolm suddenly looked embarrassed and the unfamiliar expression almost raised in her a smile, but she composed her face.

"I told them he was my bastard son, sired on a serving maid in my younger days and sent to America to save embarrassment to my new wife. Whether it was that or the very large amount of money I paid I don't know, but I couldn't leave him. I could never have faced you again knowing I had. I know what he has done for you and I owe him a thousand fold for keeping you safe. I also sense a deeper connection between the two of you. You deserve happiness my dear and if he can give you some modicum of it then who am I to stand in the way, whatever I fear from him."

It was then she smiled, a small sad smile that felt alien on her face that had been somber for so long and he reached out to pat her arm with affection.

"And now I must go. I'm sorry my dear but there is more here than Mr. Chandler's sanity that is at play. Something evil moves in the streets of London again, something that is so.. " And here he stopped for a moment seeming to reach for a word, "…modern, and soon I feel I will need you both again to aid in this war. Only you can help him, save him, heal him and if you can't…" he paused again and then grasped her hands in both of his fixing her with a steely gaze.

"Kill him. Set him and you free."

With a final glance at the younger man Sir Malcolm walked down the stairs. She followed with promises to write and a request for him to take a hastily penned note to Mr. Lyle. He took her briefly but firmly in his arms, kissed her forehead and then he and his silent companion walked out into the approaching dawn.

She bolted the door behind them her mind spinning with the events of the night and the unexpected return of he that she had thought lost forever. Hurriedly she collected the supplies she needed and returned upstairs. She began by lighting the candles and moving them nearer to the bed. In their soft light and the gathering dawn she could see more of the true extent of the torture he's suffered at the hands of others. His face was filthy but even through the dirt she could see it was a mass of bruises, discoloured and swollen clear evidence vicious beatings. His scalp, which had been brutally cropped was lacerated and dotted with weeping sores. She could feel an ice-cold rage building inside of her as she washed the grime away to illuminate further his injuries. Silently she thanked her mentor for her herb lore as she tended the bruises and cuts on his face. She then moved to his hands, those hands that had always touched her so kindly and that she had, in her fevered dreams in the darkness of her room, imagined caressing her naked flesh. The nails were torn and ragged and some appeared to have been tore out. The knuckles were skinned in places almost to the bone and around his wrists evidence of shackles that had bitten and cruelly rubbed his flesh. She tended each one with tenderness her tears falling in echo of his pain mixing into the water, cleansing his skin with love and grief.

Although he hadn't moved during her ministrations she was cautious to go further but she knew she had to. To leave any injury unattended any longer could cause further infection, which even her skill would be unable to heal. She stripped the blankets away gasping at the stink that exuded from his body. His clothing, what there was of it was layered in filth of what she could only imagine and crusted in blood. She quickly recognised there was nothing to save and that it would be impossible to remove them in tact and so using the knife she used in her medicine work she began to cut them away. She forced herself to only focus on the action of cutting ignoring the marks that the stripping of his body revealed to her horrified eyes. It was only when he lay naked before her in the brightening dawn she fully understood what he had truly suffered. There was barely an inch of flesh undamaged. He had been beaten and whipped the evidence of this revealed fully when she managed to turn him over. His back down to his buttocks was a web of lacerations criss-crossing his flesh, which in places looked flayed. His chest and arms were scared with burn marks, which on closer inspection were the size of cigar ends. Tenderly she cleaned each wound, imprinting each one on her memory a promise of revenge. The bruises on his ribs spoke of breaks, which she strapped and then finally she turned to his shoulder. It was twisted unnaturally his clavicle jutting in an ugly angle against his skin and she realised that it was certainly dislocated. There was only one thing she could do but she knew this would cause him unbelievable pain. However without it infection would set in and it would kill him as certainly as if she were to press the barrel of his own gun to his temple and pull the trigger.

For a moment that image seemed the answer to everything. Killing him and then turning the gun on herself would be a kindness to both of them. Never again having to face the possibility of him walking away from her. Freeing him from the curse that made his life a living hell. An existence without pain together conjoined in the eternity of death. It seemed obvious, right even. But even without the dogma of her religion she knew she could not make that choice for him. Loving him, accepting everything he was gave her no rights over him in life or in death. Also the thought of exiting her life without once more feeling the touch of his hands, looking deep into his eyes and hearing her name on his lips was a hope she could not risk, even though looking at his broken and bloody form that future looked hopeless.

He moaned as she moved onto the bed his head rolling from side to side against the pillow as she inserted under the damaged shoulder a book. She laid her hand gently against his savaged face and pressed her lips to his forehead in a mirror image of his own actions when she had run to the safety of his room when the night comers had terrorized her prayers. This action of apology seemed to calm him and without further thought as to the agony she was about to cause him she grasped his lower arm, settled her hand on the front of his shoulder pulled and pressed down savagely feeling the joint lock back into place. The scream that emanated from his throat was inhuman, animalistic in its sound. His body thrashed and involuntarily he sat up his eyes opening suddenly. His brown eyes, which in those seconds showed in them more pain and anguish than any soul should ever have to suffer bored into hers and there was a moment of sanity in his gaze.

"Vanessa."

Then his body crashed onto hers. She could barely support his weight but she rejoiced in it, in his need for her. She could feel the heat of his skin burning through the thin material of her nightgown and for the first time in those terrible months of light and loneliness she felt whole and as it she had a purpose. It was clear now what she needed to do. She would heal him but she would not hold him although every cell of her body and mind ached to have him bound eternally to her. Her soul had made it's choice back in the far eons of time she was his but she had no right to influence him, although downstairs in the packets and jars she kept she had every means to. She would now take on the mantle of protector, she would demand no more.

Tenderly and with regret for the break in their skins contact she laid him down crossing his injured arm across his body and securing it with linen bandages. Under the guttering candles and the pale light of the dawn seeping in through the tiny window above the bed his skin looked grey, his breathing shallow and yet he looked safe for the first time. She stripped the sheets replacing them and the blankets over his body and then wrapped the filthy rags she'd cut from him in them and bundled them up. As she turned to step away to take them downstairs he began to moan his head turning agitatedly against the pillow.

"Ethan, I'll be straight back, rest easy my love, save your strength, we have a long road ahead of us but I will be with you every step, I will not leave you."

He calmed and she glided down the stairs to step into the dawn. For the first time that she could remember she welcomed the light that it bought, a twin of the one that now glimmered so faintly, a flicker of hope in the depths of her soul. She watched as the light caressed the landscape gently like a lover's touch beautifying it, returning it to how she remembered it in times long past.

She gazed for a while longer but her attention was quickly brought back to the present. As she turned back towards the cottage her eyes went immediately to the tiny window that he lay below. She had abated death for the moment but she knew he would not give up so easily. There would be other battles to fight and she would win them. Her thoughts turned to Sir Malcolm and hoped that he too would find the fortitude to face alone the troubles that he faced. Her focus however had to be Ethan and she was impatient already for a response from Mr. Lyle. She then returned inside, to her moors.


	3. Chapter 3

She was awoken suddenly from a deep slumber by moaning that as she forced her shattered self into full wakefulness, became louder and more insistent. Ethan was thrashing on the low bed the sheets and blankets twisted round his flailing limbs and in the dim light of the candles she saw the sheen of sweat on his body. Even before she laid her hands on his skin she could feel the heat radiating off him and realised this wasn't another one of reoccurring bad dreams that had continued to rip through his dark hours but the fever that she had been waiting for and dreading for days. The fever that unless she could break it quickly, in his weakened state could kill him.

For the last two days and nights he had remained unconscious and she had tended and cared for him redressing his wounds, bathing him and painstakingly dripping liquid and food in the form of clear broths into his mouth gently massaging his throat to force him to swallow. She had, even though her own faith was shattered repeated every prayer of petition and intercession she knew hoping that his faith would be enough and that God would listen and save his wolf. The only time he moved or made a sound was deep in the quietest times of the night where he would scream like an animal caught in the agony of nightmares that she could only imagine. Little he shouted made sense apart from her name keened in desperation over and over again but the sounds spoke of suffering beyond human endurance. At these times all she could do was wrap him in her arms holding him to her body suffering gladly the bruises he inflicted on her flesh until finally exhausted he lay still again. Over this time she had barely ate or slept but she knew she could not afford to rest more, their trials were far from over.

She was out of her chair nearly stumbling in tiredness but sure of what she had to do. She raced down the stairs outside to the rain barrel. There she dipped the waiting jug into the icy water that felt like a burn as her hand crashed through the thin ice that crusted the surface. She returned to the room which was in disarray. In the moments he had been gone his thrashing limbs had swept the table by the bed and her chair over. However all the things she needed were placed safely away from the bed in readiness and she carefully measured drops of tincture of willow bark into a waiting glass adding the icy water from the barrel. She knew she would only have a small chance to force the liquid that would aid the reduction in his fever into him and she watched him carefully for a lessoning in the frantic movements of his body. Suddenly he lay still and she acted leaping on the bed and onto his chest her knees on his biceps trapping his arms. Without care she yanked his head up and forced the small amount of liquid into his mouth slamming her hand over his mouth and pinching his nose to make him swallow. She was just in time as the frenzy of thrashing began again bucking her off his helpless form hard onto the floor. She lay winded there waiting for the violence to cease. Thankfully the drug was quick and soon the crazed movements became less forceful. Deftly she sponged his scorched skin with the icy water, drying it and rewashing it over and over again. Keeping cloths ever damp to lay on his burning forehead. After innumerable times she dried him for the final time then removed a small knife from her pocket which she drew in a straight line across the pad of her thumb. She carefully smeared her life's blood onto his maimed chest in her own sign of protection, branding him with the mark of the scorpion. Then she remade the bed tucking the sheets and blankets she piled on top tightly about him. He moaned trying to throw them off but she forced them back over him again and again until his struggling got weaker. She knew now all she could do was wait; that her skill was exhausted and she would have to trust his life now to providence and his own seemly broken spirit.

His breathing was so fast and even though his limbs did not thrash any longer he shivered uncontrollably his head rolling on the pillow. She knelt down by the side of the bed resting her head on his chest that rose and fell too quickly like he was fighting the air, his heart beat fluttering in his chest like an animal trying to escape.

She was beyond prayer but over and over she repeated the same words in desperation in the hope that lost as he was in his battle with his own body that somehow he would hear her and continue to fight. Her voice sounded loud and threatening as she berated him ceaselessly.

"Ethan please. Don't surrender, don't give up – I love you."

All through the hours of that long night she continued chanting it over and over until her voice became hoarse and finally gave out and then she mouthed the words again and again until blackness overtook her, enveloping her in its care.

She was drowning in filth, brackish, dark water closing over her head pulling her down into oblivion. She struggled against the mindless force clutching her body tearing her down away from the light, away from hope, away from him. Then suddenly she was conscious of light and the pain that possessed her body was real, radiating from her tortured muscles that had been held for God know how many hours in the same position. The cold dawn had broken, the world was silent and she was suddenly terrified at what she would face when she lifted her head which at some point in the night had fallen off his chest and onto the edge of the bed. Slowly she raised her head steeling herself for the sight of his dead face. She could see it in her mind's eye and although her heart and soul screamed at the lost, to see him finally at peace would be blessed release from his suffering. One hand brushed over the pocket of her skirt to feel the heavy gun she'd taken to keeping there and it was a comfort to know that in a few moments she would be able to join him in the sanctity of death. She gazed at his ravaged face, still to her beautiful despite the marks and contusions of pain and softly ran her fingers over any parts of undamaged flesh she could find. It was then she suddenly realised that his skin was still warm but naturally so and not chilled with the icy fingers of death. With a cry of wonder she stood, ignoring the screaming of her cramped muscles and pulled the sheets aside. His chest rose and fell, his breathing was steady and when she rested her hand over his heart marked with her blood, its beat too was normal. He was alive, the fever had broken and he was now sleeping peacefully; the sweet sleep of recovery not sickness. Her eyes welled with tears which ran down her face without stopping and she rejoiced in the fact that somehow, although she'd stepped away from her God that he had granted her succor.

However the realist in her knew that although the worst was over Ethan still needed much care to, if possible, fully recover physically. His mental recovery was another matter and she shied away from facing this reality. As silently as she could she righted the room and then with a glance at his peaceful form glided down the stairs. Although the urge to just sit by his bed side and watch him was strong she knew that she too needed care, she needed to stay well for him. Quickly she washed her face and body, removed her stained dress, replacing it with a thin chemise, petticoat and cardigan against the cold and ran her a comb through her tangled hair tying it back from her face. She also prepared some food and a cup of her spiced tea and then placing it on a tray returned upstairs.

He was still asleep, the dawn light showing some normal colour in his cheeks, one arm raised above his head in a position that she'd seen once before when she had watched him sleeping, although the man before her was a shadow of her memory. She recalled the horror of night the night comers had threatened her prayers and not knowing what was real and what was in her imagination she'd run to the sanctity of his presence and into his arms. He'd allowed her to sleep in his bed, had left the candles burning at her request and in gentlemanly propriety taken the couch in front of the fire. She'd woken the next morning from the best night's rest she'd experienced in weeks and had spent long minutes watching him sleep, trying to engrave the image onto her memory. She remembered how she'd considered pressing her lips to his, kissing him awake in the hope that he'd forget himself, lift her in his arms and return her to the bed joining her there to make the fierce love to her that she'd always imagined he was capable of and that her body and soul had begun to crave. But something had stopped her and she now regretted that decision wondering if, had she been braver, that he might have stayed, and the events that marked his skin and her heart so cruelly might never have occurred.

She returned to the chair by the side of the bed to eat the stew and drink her tea knowing as she forced every mouthful down she would need her strength for the days that would follow. His body was, she believed, healing and he should gain much, if not all of his former rigor. However it was his mind that was her concern now. Although she had herself survived her time in the asylum reasonably unscathed, even from the sanitized version Sir Malcolm had provided her with she knew that his suffering had been far beyond her experience and that he would be much changed. But how much changed she could only guess. In those months of endurance had his mind been shattered? Would he remember her despite his frequent calling for her or had her name just become another part of the torture? And if he did would seeing her again not just bring all of the horror back causing him to relapse finally into insanity? And what of the being that lurked inside of him, the one that had run from her after saving her from Evelyn Poole's knife? When that possessed him in what she quickly calculated would be in just over a week's time, would it still stand as her protector or would it strike her down in retribution for her turning away from her God? The thoughts whirled scratching her brain until she longed for the oblivion of thoughtlessness the peace of insensibility. In her exhausted state she felt like she was floating in the demi-monde between this reality's version of waking and sleeping when suddenly she became aware of another presence, one that played around the edges of her consciousness trying to stay hidden in the shadows but had somehow become known and was frighteningly familiar.

It was very clear that this was not a benign spirit and she felt the hatred radiating off it directed straight at her. She turned slowly and was shocked to see the witch's daughter Hecate standing in at the top of the stairs her eyes full of loathing. Her voice, when she spoke, was light but full of menace.

"Miss Ives what a pleasure to see you again and finally in this …grim little place which I'm enchanted to say suits you so well. Ah I can see in your eyes you are wondering how I gained entrance when it was impossible for me before. But you see, my dear sister, whilst you have been tending so carefully to our dear Mr. Chandler your charms have faded and have therefore left the door just enough ajar for me to slip inside for a visit. The Master wants to make sure that his wolf is recovering well. He is waiting for him to join his quest and is not patient."

Almost it seemed with moving she approached the bed and gazed down on Ethan's face with what Vanessa could only explain as ardor and excitement. A stab of jealously nailed deep into her heart. She recalled clearly the last conversation they'd shared as the girl had gloatingly described how she'd kissed him and could still taste him on her mouth. The thought that this bitch, who stood bent over the prone form of the man she loved, had laid her lips on him and that it was that last kiss he'd remember made her want to physically attack her and the strength of her reaction shook her.

"You are not welcome here. How dare you name yourself sister to me? We are as far apart as it is possible for two beings to be and I name you deceiver, slave, whore of Satan. Ethan Chandler is under my protection and the protection of God and I have marked him as such. You have no power here and I tell you to go. Beware witch I have stood against your Master before and you have none of his power."

The girl straightened up her mouth stretched wide by a smile of utter confidence that in her exhausted state shook her, but she knew she had to stay strong and one glance at his sleeping face fortified her.

"You did not beat him, he allowed you to step away in that moment to gain a greater power and once he has that you will be helpless against him and he will take you as is his right and will. Ethan understands his purpose and he will take his place at the Master's side. His lust for the blood of the innocent is deep within him, he knows that his destiny is to feed with impunity, to aid the winged one to take his rightful place on the bloody throne of heaven and he relishes this and accepts it. He admitted as much to me when called upon him and kissed his mouth." The witch's voice radiated with power and glee and she seemed to fill all of the space in the room with her darkness as she moved towards her locking her cold blue eyes onto hers, their faces almost touching. Vanessa watched in cool fascination as her human visage began to peel slowly away revealing her true self, naked, bald and scared with the claws of the beast she called master and symbols of the dark magic she served. Her eyes now yellow like a cats, glowed in the light of the room with contempt.

"He will be the Masters but we will leave him a short while longer under your care because we have that need. But mark my word well, you will not be able to hold him, he left you easily once before and he will not hesitate to do so again. And when he has fulfilled his destiny, and the Master rules he will give him to me and you will watch as he takes me for his lover and I will laugh at your despair as he fucks me again and again in front of you and there will be nothing you can do to stop it. You will know anguish at his pleasure in my body and the pleasure he will give me that you will never know. We will relish your suffering, and together we will torture you into eternity."

The words pierced her very soul and she knew the vision that Hecate conjured in front of her eHHunwilling sight was that which she was most afraid of. A sudden rage burnt cold and white inside her. She reached her clawed hands up to rake at the mocking face to press her thumbs into those lying eyes to crush the witches' head between her hands obliterating her to a lump of bloody pulp but she was too late, the vision faded and she was left only with the sharp coppery tang of blood in her mouth where she'd bitten her own tongue and the sound of cruel, harsh laughter on the air.

The sudden unexpected attack in daylight when the witch's power was supposedly at its weakest had shaken her to her very core and she chastised herself for her lack of thought regarding their protection. The warning signs had been there and yet she had failed recognised them. She dragged her aching body down the stairs and out to the front of the cottage smearing yet more of her life's blood into the stones by the gate. She fretted that it might be too little too late but precautions needed to be taken despite her bone deep weariness. She stumbled back up the path and bolted the door behind her returning up the stairs to keep watch over him, she would keep him safe or die in the attempt.

Exhausted after many nights with limited sleep and now the shock of the witch's appearance, she ached to lay down but the only place was the space next to him in the narrow bed. She was concerned that his comfort was preserved but knew that her health was also an issue and if she succumbed to illness who would look after him?

"It will only be for an hour or two at most." She told herself and she knew it was a truth, she rarely slept for more than a couple of hours at a time. She forced her mind past the excitement she felt regarding lying next to him – the thing she'd dreamed about for so long during his absence.

Slowly she removed her cardigan and then lifted the sheets on the bed. There was little room to slip into but she was thin and much of his previous bulk had been lost due to the ill treatment he'd suffered in the asylum and his illness. She was struck at the rightness of the feel of his body next to hers the way she naturally fitted around his form and how, although he was deeply asleep, his body seemed to curve to accommodate hers.

She lay looking into the ruin of Ethan Chandler's face inches away from hers on the smooth pillow. With infinite care she ran a delicate touch over his torn lips, those lips that had haunted her dreams with remembered kisses and sometimes her nightmares when they were smeared with the blood of her dear friend, and she made a vow there and then that she would make his care her life's work. Even if that meant walking away from him forever. But she would never allow Satan to take possession of him or Hecate – she would kill him first. Slowly in the warmth of his beloved presence she slipped towards dreams and some semblance of peace.


	4. Chapter 4

The light that she was conscious of through her still lidded eyes was much changed from that of the dawn when she closed them. It had a richer, deeper glow and even without opening them she knew that the day had almost come to an end and that she had slept far longer than the few hours that she in truth would have allowed herself. Her physical self was warm and comfortable, cossetted in the familiar cocoon of her bed. She was aware of a difference within herself too. A peace, a calmness that was similar to how the air always felt after a storm, such a revelation after the restlessness of the last few months – she felt that she'd survived something and although the war had only just begun, she'd set her battle lines securely.

However it was not the light alone that had awoken her. Her sleep drenched self could sense the lightest, faintest touch against the skin of her cheekbone. A caress as soft and loving as the kiss of a child. In that second the fractured jigsaw of the previous days' events coalesced into an image, her eyes flew open to be confronted with the masterpiece of liquid brown that she'd longed to see for so long. But they, like the whole man laid close by her side had changed. Yes there was the softness there, that there had always been when he'd looked at her before, but behind that, and only so thinly vailed lurked also unimaginable horrors.

He was finally awake and coherently so it seemed. It was his finger cool in that last vestige of the winter's daylight that traced so delicately over her skin which pleasured as it always had done at his touch. As she gazed into his bloodshot eyes that she could only describe as a void of pain they were suddenly full of tears that ran down his cheeks unguarded, unstaunched and his lips trembled. Then suddenly deep sobs that seemed to tear themselves from his very soul filled her ears.

She was startled at the reaction, she'd never seen him cry and yet it seemed so normal, so natural in him; it did not unman him in anyway like other men she'd seen weep, it seemed in it ferocity to enhance his maleness. Every fibre of her being wanted to throw her body against him, twine herself vine like around his form to absorb all he was and every pain he'd suffered. She recognised that she had a capacity for his pain that was limitless, like the ocean and she would wash it from him leaving him reborn almost as if she were his mother. She wanted to press her kiss to every part of him branding him with her mouth and in doing so renewing his rent skin and tattered soul. She drew closer to him in the confined space of the bed, her hands moving towards his face to cup it in her palms as she'd done times before but in that second his gaze had changed, the softness was gone and all she could see was fear. Fear of her? Her breath caught painfully in her throat.

"NO!" A cry of pure anguish tore from his throat and he violently turned away from her his shoulders hunched and shaking with the sobs that wracked his misused body.

"Ethan, you're safe, I'm here, there's only us my love." Her hands moved again to hold his shoulders which seemed to be tearing themselves apart but he shrugged them off as if the touch of her skin burnt him."

"Don't touch me. You need to get away from me now. Go." His voice was rough and animalistic in sound, the easy drawl that had always caused her, although she hated to admit it, slightly weak at the knees was missing. There was only anger and a burning hatred that made her recoil. Hatred of her but why? But his next words that he seemed to force from his mouth made sense and also in their bitter sound caused her heart to bleed.

"I'm doomed. I'm dirty, corrupt and anything I touch will be tainted. You said you were dangerous but you have no idea of the sickness that's in my soul. I'm everything obscene and putrid. I am utter darkness and no light, not even yours can reach me now. I am beyond hope. I need to die."

She could feel the tears running down her own face. For him to feel like this. He who'd always been so resilient, who had brought her back from the darkness of her own demons, who'd made her fight and had never, even in the depths of her terrible possession, given up on her. The hatred in his words and in his voice were not directed at her, but at himself.

"Ethan, you forget I know what you are and I accept you whole heartedly. How can I do less when I myself have sinned so deep as to irrevocably blacken my own soul? You have acted unknowingly, purely and cannot be blamed for what you've done in another form. Why God choses as he does is beyond our understanding. We have to accept it is part of a bigger plan; your part seems unacceptable now but you have purpose, of this I am certain and will not be punished for the role you have been required to play in His name. You and I need to hold together to this proof of that I am sure." She could hear the belief in her voice and prayed it would find him and give him some relief.

A cold laugh barked sharply from his mouth and again her heart sank to hear the self-loathing in his words.

"You don't, can't understand. If the only stains on my soul came from the actions of the monster inside me I could hold you in my arms as I want to do 'cos God knows that's all I've prayed for in the last God knows how long. Vanessa since I left you I've done….. had done to me things so vile that I cannot believe that God himself does not strike me down now. I did nothing to stop them, I think part of me even welcomed them the more obscene they were. If you knew, fuck if you knew even part of it you'd curse me for ever laying a finger on you. I'm no true man now. Every part of my human soul's gone, I'm a shell of who I was. And if I live I know what my purpose is what fate has in store for me."

She felt helpless looking at his scarred back, heaving shoulders and listening to his ugly words lacking in any hope. Every part of her wanted to cling to him to give him succor but he was rejecting her again and it was then that a deep rage rose up inside her. She deserved more than this. Had she not suffered? Had she lost faith during those long nights of nursing him back from near death? Did she not at least deserve to have him look her in the eye and tell her this.

She sat up in the bed and grasped his shoulder digging her nails in. Her voice radiated power and strength and some part of the deep rage she felt,

"Don't you turn from me again. Don't you leave me alone to face the agony of a life without you, whatever you are without saying it to my face. I might not know the true extent of your suffering but believe me well when I say I have walked that path and come through those trials, as you will. As for your destiny was it not you who showed me that also was a choice, not preordained but something that I had also to agree to? That I was not alone because you were with me as I am with you? The witch and her master are subtle in their lies; she's been here, only this morning spewing them into my ears encouraging me to lose hope and yes they are seductive but that is part of their power and we will overcome it. We are together for a purpose, you have been bought back to me here for a purpose. Don't you realise that whatever the past, present or future I will stand by your side because the very essence of this…'' and here, just for a moment her voice broke becoming harsh with emotion, "is that I love you, have loved you I think from before we even met and will love you until there is no God, no devil and the world exists only because there is us. That is the destiny I choose Ethan Chandler and I open my arms and heart to you. However I accept I cannot hold you or bind you to that or to me. If you truly believe our paths are ones of solitude I will not stand in your way but know this if you change your mind I will always be here."

She dropped her hands from his shoulders which as she'd been speaking had stilled, the muscles there bunched and hard like ivory the bones showing clearly in the dying light. Moving her body away from his she began to swing her legs out of the bed when she was hit by a force that took her breath away. He'd sat up clasping her back to his chest his arms wrapped around hers his face buried in her hair and it felt as if he wanted to consume her. A great flood of joy rushed through her like a drug and she lent back slightly to meld herself into his embrace her own arms circling his. But soon she felt him shaking his muscles weakened by illness and abuse. She turned back now to face him her hands, as they had wanted to for so long softly cupping his beloved face which was bowed still in front of her gaze.

"Look at me, look at me Ethan, please."

Slowly he raised his face to hers and she looked deeply into his eyes wishing her healing powers could extend to not just his body but that she could cleanse his mind as well. In those eyes she saw it seemed, the pain of the world but there was something new, a glimmer of something she took as hope.

His thumbs raised in their familiar gesture to rub lightly over her face, her cheeks, her eyes every hollow and edge like he was re-familiarising himself with her image. His touch was gentle as it always had been but it was not the same he was so hesitant lacking the assurety that had always been so much a part of him. Touching her, even that first time he'd ever needed or wanted to had come naturally, it seemed as if he was meant to touch her and no permission had ever been asked or given, just accepted on both sides. She leaned into him smiling gently to reassure him that she wanted, needed, accepted his touch whatever had come before.

"Christ you are even more beautiful than I remember. I tried for so long to forget you to wipe your image from my brain but you kept coming back. In everything I saw, I saw you or part of you and in the end that was the only thing that stopped me from going mad. I didn't break, I wanted to and I came so close so many times but one thought of you and it was impossible. I tried hating you, blackening your memory, recalling over and over what you did that night but all I could see was light and it called to me with your voice."

He sounded calmer more the old self she craved and she felt the tears starting to fill her eyes in reflection of those he'd spilt. Slowly, careful of all his hurts she pulled him down to lie, their heads on the pillow, facing her and she saw them like twin souls in the womb of her bed.

"I did the same I'm afraid to say. I was so angry at you leaving, the way you did it, that awful, cruel note." She saw him flinch and his lips tried to form words but she pressed the tips of her fingers to his mouth to stifle his protestations for that moment.

"I also tried to hate you but again every time the thought of you only brought back what you'd sacrificed for me, for us and I could only love you more – you wrote the note with love, you left because you loved. It took time but I came to understand why you felt you had to leave, that you believed you needed to be punished for everything you'd done, that you wanted to protect me from what you were and maybe could become. However you forget one thing my love and that is we are linked through time – that what is within each of us requires the other but has always been separated. The path we walk through this life unlike any of the lives which I now believe we have existed is one we have now to travel cleaved together. We need to see this through together to the very end, whatever that might be. The fact is that despite the odds that you are here now, with me, makes me even more certain."

He stared at her for long moments seeming to absorb her words his mangled fingers now bandaged in the escaped tendrils of her hair that framed her face. She could see the conflict playing over his features the fight of a man desperate to protect that which he loved (and although he'd never said it she was certain he did love her) and fear of what staying meant to him, to both of them.

"I killed Sembene that night Vanessa, I couldn't help it. I begged him to kill me before I changed, I tried to shoot myself but he stopped me. He also told me I had a purpose and was prepared to sacrifice his life so I could fulfil mine. He knew what I was – he'd helped me hide it from you although he told me to tell you everything."

Vanessa's memory took her back to that dreadful moment, finding the man who'd been for so long her friend and her protector on the stairs his throat ripped apart, his blood black like his skin staining the stones around his body and her realisation that it was Ethan who had taken his life.

"I know but I don't blame you for it. Sembene knew the danger but he also knew that your curse was necessary. He was there when we translated the Verbis Diablo that one phrase repeated again and again like an irritation Lupus Deus the wolf of God – he'd seen you, he knew that that was what you were and the meaning in those words."

His head shook on the pillow and he pressed his forehead to hers avoiding her eyes.

"But what if Hecate is right that my destiny is not to be the wolf of this God but one that is coming. Vanessa when I'm turned I kill without impunity without care, the innocent and the guilty together. I've torn children apart limb from limb because I savour their blood. Surely that enough proof that what is inside me is evil that I am meant for the devil. What she said to me in my room deep inside my soul made sense of so much."

"No." Her tone was harsh and she gripped his chin feeling the roughness of his unkempt beard under her fingers and bringing his eyes once more up to hers. "I won't believe that. I can't. You protected me when you could have slaughtered me, you recognised me, no and don't say that is more proof of your being an agent of evil because of my connection with Amunet," as he tried to interrupt her, "remember you also exorcised the devil from me when I was almost lost in darkness – your light brought me back when no one else was able to, that should be proof enough that you're on the side of God. The witch is a mistress of deceit like her master." Her voice shook with the conviction of her words but his eyes were still full of doubts.

"I can't live my life being a constant danger to everyone around me. Christ Vanessa in five or so days I will change again and then what are you going to do? How are you going to protect yourself just in case I attack? I hear what you're saying and I think 'he' does want to be close to you. On the boat that Rusk was trying to take me back to America on I changed without the moon. Every minute something inside me could feel your presence getting further and further away. Two days in there was the most God awful storm and that's when it happened, I lost contact with you and that must have triggered something and the change happened. The vision's unclear but I know 'he' was fighting his way back, back to you." She could hear the bone weariness in his voice and could see he was struggling to stay conscious, that he needed to sleep, to rest, to recover from everything he'd suffered.

Softly she lifted her hands back to his face stroking his skin and gently she pressed a tender kiss on the torn flesh of his mouth keeping them there not wanting to break their touch.

"Ethan, rest now. You need to be strong. I have ideas of how to help and I'm waiting on answers that I pray will come soon. You must get strong. I'll leave you to sleep."

His hand gripped hers it seemed in desperation, "Don't go, stay." His voice was barely above a whisper but there was desperation in it and his eye lids fluttered .

"As you wish." And immediately the tension drained out of his body and it relaxed back into healing sleep.

She lay there in the dying light of another day watching over the tortured body and soul of her lover who lay only inches from her and her heart ached for him and for herself and what was to come. Despite her reassurances, her words and promises to him she was scared for the future but she hoped that as long as they remained together they could overcome anything and if not would perish together in the fight. She would never allow anything, God, the devil, witch or man to separate them again.


	5. Chapter 5

Two further days dedicated mainly to sleeping and eating of the nourishing broths and stews she made him returned some of Ethan's lost strength and by that second evening he was strong enough to venture, abate slowly down the stairs of the cottage to sit before the fire on the wooden settle. At her instance he was still well wrapped in blankets and at his, she was tucked into his side, his arm around her his hand winding the silken tresses of her hair around his fingers, smoking in companionable silence. Since finding her in his bed, he had requested her presence there every night but insisted on her finding him something to wear for modesties sake and although nudity and particularly his, was not an issue for her, she was happy to oblige both requests. She adored curling her body round his. Lying for hours with her head against his heart, her head tucked under his chin, his arms wrapped tightly around her, listening to its steady beat that mirrored her own. Since being reunited, she disliked being far from his touch. And touch her he did. More freely than before and as time progressed with less hesitancy but it never progressed past gentle caresses and although she appreciated that he was not fully returned to strength, her body ached for more.

They had talked more over the days when he was awake and he had shared with her some of his remembrances from their time apart, as she had with him but when it came to his time in the asylum he stayed silent. She understood his reticence, she herself had never divulged the full extent of her 'treatment' in the name of sanity. From the little Sir Malcolm had told her and the damage to his body she accepted that he may never be able to share with her what had occurred in that place of horror. He allowed her to clean and care for his wounds, physical hurts that were healing more quickly than she believed possible but thought better to mention it, for as every hour passed she could see he was brooding. She would catch him, when she returned from any errands she needed to perform outside the cottage wearing a look of increasing concern and she knew that the waxing of the moon and the nearness to it being full was causing him much anxiety. This was something that was playing on her mind too but she had other worries. Although she was relieved at her lover's continuing return to health she knew that this could spell the return of Hecate and she was not convinced that she was ready to or even able yet to indulge in a battle for Ethan's soul.

Frequently she scanned the wild horizon of the moor around the cottage and attuned herself more deeply to the vibrations that existed in the space between the worlds but she could sense nothing concrete although tendrils of a gathering threat were evident but exactly where it came from was unclear. She mentioned nothing to Ethan but could feel him watching her closely his brown eyes clouded with unspoken questions but like her he did not attempt to uncover any secrets.

The firelight was dying and she was loathed to leave the safety and comfort of his arms to add more fuel to the fire but she was careful of his health and feared a return of the fever from which he'd only just recovered. She had just started to extract herself from the circle of his arms with a murmured reassurance of a hasty return, when she felt him stiffen and pull her back against his body.

"Wait." His entire form seemed to have become completely alert to something only he could sense or hear.

"Do you have one of my guns nearby?" His voice radiated a deep anxiety as if he sensed some danger and he began to attempt to unwrap himself from the blankets covering his lower body.

She turned to face him placing her hands against his shoulders to stop his rising. "Yes just under the settle but why, what can you hear?"

"A carriage'" And at that moment she too could hear the heavy thud of horses hooves and the rattle of wheels as a badly sprung vehicle found its way over the rough ground near to the cottage in the gathering twilight.

Quickly she stood and retrieved the gun readying it as he'd taught her. She pushed her senses out into the darkness but could feel nothing that constituted a threat in fact the overlying sense was that of discomfort, fear and irritation. Suddenly it made sense and she turned back to him now standing clutching the back of the settle and flashed him an amused grin which quickly turned to a scowl of irritation as he began to wobble.

"Sit down Ethan, there is nothing to fear, I do believe that the answer to our prayers in the form of our favourite Egyptologist is just about to arrive. Also you will need to cover yourself, he'll suffer an apoplectic fit seeing you dressed like that." She paused to admiringly run her eyes over him clothed only in a pair of thin cotton sleeping trousers and a tight undershirt that was unbuttoned to the middle of his chest, a slightly salacious smile playing around her mouth.

He too grinned and she rejoiced to see a return of just a trace of that gleam in his eyes that had in the past and did then, cause her stomach to swoop with desire. Quickly he pulled on a jumper that lay on the back of the settle and returned to a prone position as she re-covered him with the blankets and smiled into his eyes. What she saw there, a slight darkening caused her heart to beat faster. She could not resist learning close to graze a kiss onto his mouth and her heart leapt as for the first time since waking he returned it, deepening the pressure by pulling her head towards him a growl emanating deep in his throat. She felt his lips open under hers and his tongue slowly swept over the seam of her mouth that she opened to his deliberate and delicate penetration. She had to brace herself with her hands against his forearms to stop herself falling forward into his lap. The hand that wasn't holding her head snaked round her waist and slipped into the gap between her chemise and the underskirt she was wearing that that had become her usual attire. The touch of his hand against her naked flesh, its heat radiating against her skin caused her to gasp under his mouth and her nipples under the thin fabric to harden.

The sharp staccato rapping on the door broke them apart both their breathing rapid and she noticed his lips were slightly swollen and there was clear evidence of his arousal under the thin blankets covering his lap.

She was in a daze desperate to renew the contact only returning to full reality when his voice rumbled, "Vanessa let the poor man in." A slow grin etched over his face as he also noticed what the thin fabric covering her breasts failed to hide and tossed her a shawl to preserve her modesty.

As she wrapped it round herself her cheeks flaring red under his obvious amusement she could hear the high pitched voice of their slightly ridiculous friend outside.

"Miss Ives. Oh Miss Ives are you there? Be quick, be quick it's cold enough to freeze hell out here and the wind plays havoc with my hair."

Trying to suppress the laughter that bubbled up she raced to the door fumbling with the latch, her hands still a little unsteady to face Mr. Frederick Lyle bundled up like he was just about to take part on an expedition to the Artic. His plump little body was swathed in a wide variety of scarves and shawls though she noticed with amusement that vanity had not allowed him to don a hat, necessary for the weather. He had always been inordinately proud of his hair. He fussily bustled into the room bringing some of the outside cold with him and a large carpet bag.

"Miss Ives, Miss Ives, my heart bursts with pleasure to see you but oh that journey, dreadful absolutely dreadful, my nerves are destroyed positively destroyed all that terrible jolting and shaking simply Neolithic mode of transport." He grasped her hands in his plump, silky palms and she led him solicitously over to the large chair by the fire where he spotted the up to then unnoticed form of Ethan.

"Oh Mr. Chandler, even sitting down you still reduce me to miniature, but your hair my dear boy your hair whatever possessed you?" his hands flew to his own perfectly coiffured locks.

He chuckled and ran his hands over his cropped hair that had just started to grow back but was significantly shorter than when Mr. Lyle had last seen him. "Sir a pleasure as always. I'm afraid me and my hair have had some adventures since we last spoke and my hair took the brunt of them."

"Not that I'm complaining at all," the little man twittered batting his eyelashes, "it makes you look exciting, quite the brutish criminal if you don't mind me saying,"

"You have no idea." And for a moment she saw his eyes become dark and hard.

She helped the shaking man out of his many layers of outer clothing and provided him with a glass of brandy after his request for "a tiny sherry for purely medicinal reasons." could not be procured. She then returned to the settle next to Ethan but left a distance between them. The kiss they'd shared so unexpectedly had shaken her and she did not trust herself to touch him with company in the room. She felt his cool gaze on her and felt rather than saw a wry smile playing over his lips. He seemed very aware of the affect he'd had on her and was obviously enjoying it.

The three talked for a while Mr. Lyle passing snippets of gossip from the London Season including news that Mr. Grey had been seen frequently with a new companion a very striking young blonde woman and that Dr. Frankenstein had seemed to have disappeared, both of which concerned her deeply. He then passed her a letter from Sir Malcolm which she placed carefully aside to read later.

"Mr. Lyle, speaking of letters I presume the reason for your visit, of which I am grateful is due to you receiving my letter and I am wondering if you have had any thoughts relating to my questions?" She leant forward expectantly towards the older man.

"Oh yes, I have my dear I have, now let me see." And he opened the carpet bag that he'd brought in with him which she noticed was full of papers and books which she rightly suspected he had plundered straight from the archives of the British Museum.

"Now," he said as he started to lay papers and books onto the table, "your letter expressed an interest in wolves their mythology, history and also lycanthropy a fascinating subject for a dark night although my dear Miss Ives I am a little surprised at your interest although with everything you have recently faced maybe not. I presume we are delving deeper into the character of our dear friend Lupus Dei – that maybe you think that it is not a literal wolf but a man that changes, is possessed by a wolf or its spirit?" Here he stopped for a moment and his eyes moved to the still figure on the settle but her nod of encouragement caused him to continue. "Well a checkered past the wolf and those who change into his kind has throughout history but there is some good too. For instance did you know that wolves like some humans," and here he blushed slightly, "practice monogamy – they mate for life. They are totally loyal to their chosen mate and will fight to protect them to the death? They can also never harm their mate. However much mythology paints the wolf as evil, in Norse legends the great wolf Fenrir brings about Ragnarok, the end of days. In most cultures they are hated, named ruthless destroyer, undisciplined killer, even in the bible they are spoken of as agents of the devil to harass the good to test their faith. And those who change at the moon are the stuff of nightmares, spawn of Satan and collaborators with witches. Only really in your native country Mr. Chandler do the native peoples hold them in any kind of esteem thinking them great hunters and spirit guides. Do you have any experience of this?"

Throughout this speech she had watched him closely and although to the casual observer such as Mr. Lyle his countenance would only show interest, to her, who knew him best, she could see the conflicts of emotions that lay behind his eyes which had hardened at the harsh truth of the words uttered in innocence and the tensing in the muscles of his back as he lent forward. She had moved closer to him and taken his hand attempting through the touch of her fingers to provide reassurance and support tracing them over his skin in soothing patterns. Feeling under her fingertips the ridges of scars and the callouses that graced the tips of his fingers and the palms of his hands. He turned to her for just a moment and raised the other to graze his thumb in that that familiar gesture of affection over her cheek the whisper of a smile on his lips and then turned back to the Egyptologist who was gazing at the pair of them like a proud father."

"You are correct sir the wolf is revered in many tribes especially the Apache where it is the sign of the warrior. The shaman believe that warriors are lead to the afterlife by a great grey wolf and only the most powerful receive the spirt of the wolf as their totem animal. The wolf is also a shifter – it walks between worlds. But there's little parallel between Western Christianity and the beliefs of the native tribes of my country. Here as you say shifters or werewolves are the stuff of horror stories told to frighten children into being good." He sounded exasperated and turned towards her his eyes seeing feverish in the firelight.

"But surely there is something in all of this that proves that the wolf of God is that, a protector, a force for good or why would the devil repeat it again and again like it was madness in him?" She knew her voice sounded harsh and desperate but she was terrified that without some kind of hope he would become convinced again that his purpose was evil and would turn away again from her in another attempt to protect her from his darkness.

"Well I myself was almost at a loss. Story after story, witness accounts in the hundreds of the evils of the men and women who became wolves. Documents detailing trials and the burning of countless people accused of heinous crimes committed under the influence of the moon. But then just as I was about to hang my head in shame at my failure, I came across this terribly obscure account from Sweden from the late sixteen hundreds about a man called Thiess of Kaltenbrun. He was tried for heresy in 1692 when he swore he was a werewolf or wahrwolff and that he and others like him journeyed to hell to fight the devil and his witches to protect the town's people and to get back stolen crops and livestock that would ensure a good harvest. In his testament he refers to himself and the others that changed as 'hounds of God' and swore he worked for God's purpose and when he died his soul would reside in heaven. I admit my dears it is not much but it is a start, it is something and I hope that in some small way I have helped." He slumped back in his seat and finished the brandy with a small grimace.

She stood up, gliding over to him and knelt down by the side of his chair. "Mr. Lyle you are a true and good friend and believe me when I say you have helped more than you know. I am unable to tell you what my exact reasons are, these must stay hidden for just a while longer but I extend to you every thanks for everything you have done."

The little man gazed down at her his face aglow with pleasure at her words and fondly patted her hand which rested on the arm of his chair. "Ah Miss Ives London misses your beauty and your grace when do you plan to return? My soirees are perfectly common place without you."

She laughed and assured him that it would be soon but until Ethan was fully recovered they would need to stay on the moors. At this the portly Egyptologist stood to take his leave twinkling that the charming young man who'd brought him in the carriage has assured him there was a comfortable inn not far away and would wake him in time to take the train back to London the next day.

"I'll leave the papers and books for you onward scrutiny, no one will miss them, as you know like most of the 'treasures' in the museum they are scrupulously ignored."

Taking his leave from them both with promises to write again if he found anything else he disappeared into the depths of the carriage. She stood at the doorway waving him into the darkness and then locked the door re-entering the cottage with a feeling of trepidation as to how Ethan would have interpreted the knowledge. He was still sitting on the settle his head bowed, his hands on his knees the fingers curled into loose fists. She studied his form, dark in the light of the candles and the fire that was burning down to embers and with a shiver she drew the shawl closer round her body, a layer of protection against his brooding thoughts. His body was perfectly still, his breathing calm but it scared her the stillness, the control, the thinking. It took her back in her memory to the last time she'd seen him, before the curtains in her room. There too he'd been a dark figure against a dying light. That time she'd offered him her love, her acceptance and after telling her he needed time to think he'd left her because he thought it the best way to protect her from him, from the monster he believed himself to be. She feared the tales, even the last story would only convince him further that he was doomed and his path lay away from her.

Finally his head lifted and his eyes found her. She could see nothing in them to give her hope but she refused to speak, she had sworn not to force his hand. Only by realising that his purpose was for God and for good would he be strong enough to face what lay ahead, her words would only weaken him. She watched as he raised his hand towards her and she moved to sit down at his side. Her own thoughts were racing and had to use every ounce of her resolve not to throw herself against him to scream and beg for him to believe, to stay, to walk by her side. As she sat he turned towards her and she looked into his eyes. They held her gaze steady and true but they told her nothing, they were shuttered but not cold. In those long moments as their gazes locked together she felt he was committing her to memory, that he was taking a part of her into himself to keep, that he was leaving her.

When his lips opened to speak she clasped her hands together to stop herself pressing them to his mouth to block his words but she knew he would speak anyway that he needed her to hear his words and because she loved him she had to listen.

"Wolves mate for life. They are totally loyal to their chosen mate and will fight to protect them to the death. They can also never harm their mate." His voice was low and soft but with a growing strength.

At first her mind could hardly absorb what he was saying to her as they were not what her mind had formed regarding what he would say, but she recognised the words as those that Mr. Lyle had spoken before he left.

"Vanessa in three days' time the moon will be full and I will turn into the wolf that you saw. I will need to hunt I will need to kill. I will attack anything with a pulse because that is what I have always done. But I won't attack my mate." He grasped her shoulders and she saw deep in his eyes a glimmer of realisation a sudden understanding.

"Only once in my cursed life as far as I know have I ever walked away from something with a pulse and that was you. You told me that you thought that I recognised you that night. On the boat to America the moment that I couldn't feel your presence any longer I changed. The wolf took over because…." he paused for a long moment looking deep into her eyes, "you are my mate, and he will fight to the death to protect you. All the time I've thought that what was inside me was a danger to you and yet all he wants to do is protect you, to stay close to you. Christ Vanessa how could I not see it." He slowly moved his hands from her shoulders pulling her against his body and her own hands glided round his back clinging on, barely able to believe what he was saying. The joy inside her bubbled up like a fountain and in that moment she stared to believe that he would stay, that he had regained his faith in them.

He buried his face into her hair his voice muffled against the cascade of waves his hands circling over the shawl that covered her back, "For what I've put you through I should be shot. Forgive me?"

Carefully she pulled away from his body her hands reaching up to cup his face, her fingers brushing against the stubble of his butchered hair and she could feel her eyes glowing with unsuppressed relief and thanks. "I do, of course I do." It was an echo of the words she'd said that terrible evening he'd left her but she meant it as she had then with all of her heart.

Slowly he lowered his lips to hers and their kiss was gentle, a kiss of acceptance, forgiveness and love, and she could not help the tears that fell from her eyes in relief.

"No, no don't cry, please don't cry darlin'. I've been a block headed idiot but I understand now that I'm where I'm meant to be, with you, protecting you and I will never, ever leave you again." and he kissed every tear drying her cheeks and eyelashes with his lips' gentle touch until they stopped falling from her eyes.

He pulled back again and looked deep into her eyes and in them she saw his resolve and something else that she dared not name, but he did.

"Vanessa Ives I love you. I think I have loved you even before I ever laid eyes on you. From the very first moment I saw you I felt something, it was like I'd come home. I tried to deny it, ignore it, to stay away and yet I kept coming back, returning to you. It's like you're in my blood, you are part of me and when I'm not with you I'm not whole. But I need to be sure you are going to be safe, that when I change I won't hurt you, I won't attack. You know that I had dealings with the native tribes of New Mexico and it was through these that I became cursed. One day I swear I will tell you the story of how it happened but I can't now. I need you to trust me because there is something I need us to do, something that will seem very alien to you. I need to bind the beast to you by binding us together. I know he recognises you as his mate but I need that to be true between us too. I need to perform a binding ceremony between us. I need you to agree to be bound to me. Vanessa Ives I'm asking you.." and to her shock he suddenly stood from the settle, took her hand in both of his and lowered himself to the floor on one knee. "Will you marry me?"


	6. Chapter 6

For a long moment she watched him from the window of the cottage as he performed the strange rituals of purification he had told her were necessary but so alien even to her eyes that were familiar with the ceremony of her Catholic upbringing. Their mysticism took her back to when she had secretly watched him fortifying Grandage Place against the imminent attack of Hecate and her kin. She had hidden herself, mesmerized by the strange power he exuded wielding the smoke and feathers, wreathed in the grey, circling tendrils that smelt of far off lands and ancient cultures. The chanting high pitched and keening, so different from the usual deep timbered drawl of his speaking voice but comforting, almost hypnotic in quality radiating energy in a time when she had contained so little.

Bathed in the weak winter sunshine he again was surrounded by smoke – white this time, his body naked to the waist bathed in it the chanting softer, more melodic almost hymn like in its complications. Regretfully she tore her gaze away from him and the hills and plains of his body to continue the complicated pattern of braiding she had almost finished that would when complete, produce a belt. It was lucky her fingers were nimble and she was a quick learner as the pattern was fiendishly intricate and any mistake he had warned her would lessened its power. Over and over she recited the meaning of the colours she was weaving into it red for water and the south, black for earth and the west, white for air and the north, yellow for fire and the east and finally green for the spirit, balance and harmony and within them the liturgy of her own religion. Finally it was complete long enough and to her careful eye perfect. Carefully she tied the flat circles of clay that had been prepared and baked after being mixed with their blood and marked with their symbols; the scorpion on one and the wolf on the other.

She laid the belt down across the table and then with a final glance outside drifted up the stairs of the cottage to ready herself for her wedding feeling deep within herself a calmness but tinged with excitment.

It was certainly not the day that as a girl she had envisioned for herself although in truth it had never been the all-encompassing ideal it had been for Mina. There would be no bridesmaids, no father to give her away after walking her down the aisle, no priest, no prayers, no church, no blessing but something darker, more ancient, hopefully more binding.

She smiled as she removed her clothes to cleanse herself ready for the ceremony that would take place at sunset and would tie her inexorably to the man she loved. She thought back to that night, two days prior when by some miracle he had realised that he was not a danger to her that he should remain with her, that he was part of God's plan. He had proposed formally, on his knee holding her hand and she replayed the scenario back like it was happening in front of her.

 _"_ _Vanessa Ives, I'm asking you, will you marry me?"_

 _She felt could barely believe what she was hearing. She'd convinced herself that he was going to leave, abandon her again into the cold light of solitude and yet here he was pledging himself to her in the most complete way he could, asking her to become his wife. An immediate denial sprang to her lips – she had never believed particularly in the sanctity of marriage: finding her mother and Sir Malcolm involved in their illicit fumblings had tarnished that image for her. Also she relished her freedom, her independence, she was not willing to be any man's chattel. The devil had offered her a normal life, tempting her with a vision of her and Ethan encased in love, living in white and beige perfection, him having sired two charming children on her. She could remember the delirium of happiness she'd found in that reality but how deep in her soul she knew that it was a brittle façade, a pretty lie spewed from the mouth of a demon who had no understanding of the love and life she yearned for._

 _She could feel her head shaking her mouth forming the words to refuse him to refute the necessity of something so banal. He seemed to guess at her feelings and continued without letting her speak._

 _"_ _I know what you are going to say. That it is unnecessary that you don't either need or want a ceremony, that your love and faith is enough. You told me rightly that final night I saw you that you were facing a battle of faith and that mine was not strong enough and then it wasn't. That in this battle to come your faith again is enough to sustain both of us and maybe it is. Maybe just your presence is enough for him – that he will act the same way as before. But I have to be sure, I have to know that I have given you every protection I can and this is something I believe will work. Vanessa I'm asking you to trust me, to do something for me and for once in your God damn life not argue!" His exasperated smile took away the sting of anger in his words and she could not help smiling down at him._

 _"_ _I am not suggesting a Christian ceremony; that will have little or no meaning to him. However when we get back to London and if it is what you want we will go straight to church, have the bans posted and read and on the third Sunday I will marry you in all the glorious ceremony of the Holy Mother Church." He paused for a moment before continuing, "The Apache of the New Mexico Territories perform a binding ceremony, a tying of hands and hearts and a mingling of blood and it is this rite I want to use to join us now, Please darlin' let me do this for you, if I am your God given protector then let me protect you in my way. Let me face the full moon and what it means for me knowing I've done all I can to keep you safe." His words and gaze radiated such belief that she could refuse him nothing. He was offering her everything and she was powerless in the glare of his love._

 _"_ _Yes Ethan I will."_

 _His smile was the first she'd seen that truly reached his eyes and in that moment they glowed. He reached up and she found herself sprawled across his lap, every inch of her face being covered in kisses punctuated by the words, "thank God, thank God."_

She remembered laughing and half-heartedly batting him away only for him to find her lips and kiss her until she was dizzy with breathlessness and desire. And then the preparations had started.

She had been extremely displeased to learn that this meant sleeping apart until after the ceremony as she had been hoping to further explore where the kisses they'd shared would lead now he'd actually declared his love and his strength was returning. However it seemed that the purity of the couple was a vital part of the binding and he had insisted on staying on the settle leaving her alone in the bed which suddenly felt large and empty without him by her side. But that wait was finally over. At sunset she would bind her hands with his and with that her soul to him and in the darkness of the night they would consummate that binding with the joining of their bodies. The following night the moon would wax fully and they would learn if his belief was founded whether the wolf in him would recognise the binding and her as his mate.

She cleaned her body carefully and slipped over her naked form a long sleeved white nightgown carefully washed for the occasion, the only white dress she owned. In this ceremony he had told her she needed to wear white, and she smiled at being for once so fashionable and so normal in something she wore. She brushed her hair until it shone but left in down and then wrapped a thick wool blanket, again white around her shoulders. Through the tiny window she could see the sky turning darker and the blaze of pinks and purples streaking the sky – it was time. She made her way slowly downstairs and taking the woven and braided belt, walked out of the door of the cottage into the cold evening air.

He was kneeling on a blanket his back to her, two small fire burning nearby. She could hear his soft chanting rising like the smoke of the fires to heaven and to whatever spirit he hoped would bless this union. Quickly she crossed herself out of habit, glad he could not see her although she was sure he would know what she'd done and crossed the short space towards him. She barely felt the cold beneath her bare feet she was so focused on him. In his white shirt which she'd sewn for him out of one of the newer sheets, he seemed to glow in the last vestiges of the daylight like something holy. On reaching the blanket she knelt down to face him and offered him the belt. He opened his eyes which had up to that minute been closed and ceased chanting. Although he did not smile at her, his eyes swam with love and in that moment she forgot everything but him. Silently he took the belt she offered and laid it between them. He began chanting again using complicated hand gestures to waft the white smoke from a burning bowl of herbs, she recognised the overwhelming scent of sage, over them. He then took from a sheath tied round his waist a knife, bathing that too in the smoke from the bowl. Raising it he ran the edge over his left palm a thin line of bright blood blooming there. The knife he offered to her. Looking deep into his eyes she too drew it deep across her palm barely noticing the sharp sting and he took her hand laying his wound against hers. Still chanting but in a different rhythm now he took the belt and wound around their clasped hands and then with her help tied in round their conjoined wrists. The binding was tight and she could feel the wetness and heat of their mingled bloods against her skin.

Finally with his other hand he took a bowl and drank deep from it then offering it to her. She took it and drained the liquid, wine that she'd liberated from Sir Malcolm's cellars when she'd left flavoured now with herbs and spices. It was then, finally he smiled at her then both holding the bowl they stood and lifting it high above their heads dashed it to the ground to smash into pieces. These would need to be gathered, wrapped and buried. She turned to find his eyes and saw in them relief, love and something she recognised as peace and knew the same emotions were reflected in her own.

Ba'cho," he placed her right hand against his heart, "Tsee'histas." He raised his own resting it over where her heart beat rapidly and she repeated the words now in English, "Wolf. Scorpion." She stepped closer at the same time as he did crushing their hands between their bodies and lifted her face to his, her eyes gazing into the eternal brown of her husband's eyes.

For a few seconds their gazes held, the promise of love hung between them almost tangible in the evening glow, his face started to move towards hers to seal their union with a kiss when the peace of the moment was shattered with a scream that seemed to rip the very fabric of the air in its intensity. Never had she in her life heard a sound like it, it seemed to surround them, like an attack. Underlying the high pitch was something deeper, muttered curses that struck a chord into her very soul and clenched at her heart, frighteningly familiar taking her back to the weeks of her possession – it was the voice of the demon. Her eyes ripped from those of Ethan to see just outside the stone plinths the dark figure of Hecate on her knees, her hands clawlike sunk deep into the earth her face raised to heaven screaming with a rage so potent she could almost see it round her like an aura of pure hatred and darkness. Her beautiful face was distorted, writhing, her eyes wild and feral the bones of her face protruding sharply under the deathly white of her skin.

And then it was over, the silence deafening after the onslaught of sound and the figure by the gate was standing calm, peaceful even and more threatening than that of the crazed harpy of moments before. The smile of her face was one of loathing and her voice harsh and bitter and she spat the words out.

"Now many I be the first to congratulate the ….newlyweds? I presume that is the correct term for you now as the result of your little ceremony." She laughed but there was no joy in the sound which rang hollow and fake. But then in a moment her voice changed. It became warm and musical almost hypnotic in its tone.

"Such lengths you go to to protect with your charms, your chants, your rituals, your herbs. When will you realise how futile all of this is; you need no protection from The Master. Why do you continue to fight so hard to exist in normality when you both have been offered so much? Power, eternal life, dominance, the ending of pain of all suffering; becoming who you are meant to be. The Master waits for both of you, only give him your souls and he will accept you both, fold you in his dark arms release you from the shackles that your human forms have inflicted on you. Allow you to be who you truly are unlimited, without constraints. Turn your back on your pale God that leaves you to writhe in the agony of self-loathing and doubt who keeps you tethered and constantly afraid of what you are."

She could feel Ethan shaking, his hands both the one bound to hers and the other laid against her heart flexing like he imagined the witches throat under their strength. She looked quickly up at him, his eyes burning in the half-light his mouth moving in silent prayer or chant.

The witch took another step forward and she held her breath, would her charms thwart her? - but it seemed that the power held as she came no further. However her attention turned now to Ethan and she stretched her hand out towards him.

"She is not yours to take Lupus Dei and you know this. You cannot bind her to you because she is not meant for you. The need to protect her is because she and thee are bound to The Master, nothing more. You are mine and your kiss confirmed it. My taste still lingers in your mouth as yours does in mine which you cannot deny. Our souls are cleaved eternally in the darkness you acknowledged in yourself. You desire her, I understand that, she is beautiful but it is only your human form which has these feelings and that is easily rectified."

Vanessa watched in horror as the image in front of her began to shift, the humanity peeling back to reveal first her true scared and branded form and then an exact replica of herself. She heard Ethan's sharp intake of breath and his muttered curse,

"Fuck me."

"Ethan give up this lost cause accept what you know is true what has always been true. Ally yourself with me in this and attain your place beloved Lupus Satanae. Be what you are meant to be, rise in glory at the side of your Master, the true God. Join me now!"

His breathing was harsh and she could feel him shaking. The power Hecate was expelling in her borrowed form and focused solely on him was fierce with the power of hell behind it. She felt him shift and the hand that had been up to that moment clenched against her heart move down her body and curl itself around her waist pulling her more firmly against his strength, melding them as one.

His voice rang out strongly in the darkening air and she rejoiced to hear the certainty in it the absolute belief.

"What God has joined together let no-one tear asunder. You have no power here witch. Take your glamors and your spells and crawl back into whatever fucking pit of hell you came from. Dark I might be but I will put a fucking bullet through my own head before I join you or your bastard of a master. You can't tempt me whatever form you take, whatever poisonous lies that spew. Come here again and I will tear you limb from limb just like I did your bitch of a mother."

His words seemed to have some effect. The wide smile faltered for a second and she stepped back just slightly but her composure returned almost immediately and she turned her stolen face to the sky and laughed.

"You could have killed me before, you know how and yet you did not and it will be the same the next time we meet and every time after that. You will come to me, you will follow your destiny, we will be together and the dark scorched earth will be our playground. Succumb or be annihilated. Lucifer will overcome." Her eyes then flicked to Vanessa and her form changed again to her own.

"Mother, The Master grows weary. Do not believe that you are protected by this you are made more vulnerable than you know, than you ever have been. He will join us or die, that is the only truth and then you will be happy to give your soul up to The Master. Do it now, save yourself the pain and anguish. Bride you yearn to be, bride you will be accept, your true husband, give up your soul." Her voice was sounded reverential but under this she heard the hate."

"You are a repellant creature and I name you daughter of lies. I will never succumb I will fight into eternity and beyond, my soul is mine and I will not give it freely, I will never give it freely. My true husband and I stand together and together we will overcome you, your Master and every denizen of hell. Be gone witch." She spat the words her fingers twisted in his shirt and she could feel his strength entering her frame, his hand protective on her waist, his breath soft against her hair.

Pure, white hate exploded on the young woman's face her hand turned to claws. Her mouth opened but before any word could slip from between her lips Ethan's voice filled the silence.

"In nomine Jesu arguo spiritu satanae. Impero pergens ad Jesum et salua mihi nec alicui absque existere, ut secundum voluntatem suam tibi ordinandum."

Repeated over and over again a chant to repel witches and she joined her voice to his the words rising and falling forcing them out into the night a shield against harm, against darkness, against separation. Together they walked forward right to the very edge of the protection to face her a dual force, united in faith their bound hands raised before them. Hecate stood her ground her face twisting back and forth between visages but she saw her resolve begin to crumble under the weight of their attack and with a scream of frustration she vanished into the darkness.

Vanessa's body vibrated with power, she could hear their breath tearing from their lungs loud in the silence. She turned towards Ethan to smile into his face to share the triumph of their victory but was horrified to see a grey cast to his skin, his eyes roll back into his head and then without warning he toppled to the cold ground pulling her with him.


	7. Chapter 7

"Ethan! No!" Her voice sounded harsh and panicked and she landed heavily onto his heaving chest. All she could see was the whites of his eyes, the brown had rolled back into his head and he began suddenly to convulse and thrash beneath her, spittle white in the corners of his mouth his fingers curved and attempting to rip at his face and chest. She pressed her whole weight on top of him, attempting to pin his hands down onto the cold, hard ground behind his head to stop him clawing at himself but his strength was fierce and it was practically impossible for her to stop him inflicting some damage. She watched his face writhe like his very bones were going to break in seeming agony and then his mouth opened and deep from inside, it seemed from his very soul tore a sound, a howl, primordial and wild. Understanding and realisation lanced white hot through her brain, Hecate's attack had triggered the beast within him and he was going to transform without the moon, whilst they were still physically bound together. Although fearful she was not afraid so much for herself, focused as she was on keeping any injuries to him at a minimum. He tore his arms free of her hold and she braced herself for the imminent attack that his transformation could cause. But it never came, in fact rather than rending her his right arm came round her body and crushed her to his chest the left where they were still joined by the binding clasping her hand in a bruising grip. The convulsing stopped and he lay still, his ragged breathing loud in the gathering night – he seemed to have gained control.

She lay against him her head buried against the heat of his chest feeling his heart beat calming and slowing as the sounds of the night began to seep over the moors and his breathing returned to normal. Tentatively she raised her head recalling how he'd looked when she'd seen him as the wolf that terrible night before he'd left her. The glowing amber eyes full of rage, the distorted face, the thick hair covering his features making his strong face a visage of horror. But as she brought herself level with him there was no change. She could not see his eyes because they were closed and from under them seeped tears.

"Van, tell me you are okay, please tell me I didn't hurt you that you are alright." His voice was rough and full of terror and something else that she recognised with horror was shame.

"My love I'm fine. You didn't attack. You just collapsed and had some kind of fit. I thought he was going to appear but he didn't – you kept control – you kept me safe. Do you remember what happened?" It was then she began to shiver uncontrollably, either from the cold of the night air or from the events of the evening but she could not stop and he reacted at once.

"Christ Vanessa, we need to get inside, you're gonna to freeze out here." His voice was suddenly harsh in the chill air. He unwrapped his arms from around her and sat up. Cradling her against his body on his lap he then deftly unwrapped the belt from their still bound hands and eased their palms apart. She winced as the scabs that had started to form between their drying wounds tore slightly. He noticed her pain and pressed a kiss to her bloody palm before sweeping her into his arms and holding her shivering form tight against his warm body carried her over to the cottage between the still burning fires and over the threshold into their home. The warmth of the fire she'd left burning was like being suddenly submerged into a warm bath and for a moment made the shaking worse due to the sudden change in temperature. On getting to the settle he sat, pulling her onto his lap and pulling the blankets he'd used the nights before over her. His arms once again surrounded her, his hands rubbed warmth into her arms and back. As she shook against him his mouth against her hair whispered comforting noises, her body began to relax against him absorbing his warmth and that from the air and the blankets and soon the uncontrolled movements gentled until they ceased and she also felt the tension ease out of his body and the firm rubbing turned into gentle caresses against her skin.

"You feel warmer now darlin'. Are you more comfortable? Can I get you anything?" his voice was back to the familiar drawl, the harsh tone of his panic gone and it buzzed soothingly in her ear making her stomach flip over slightly.

"I'm better now Ethan, thank you but we need to talk about what happened." She twisted round to face him running her finger tips over the roughness of the scruff that covered his chin and jaw. His eyes flickered shut for a moment and then he took her hand holding it against his mouth. He bussed a gentle kiss against the knuckles his moustache tickling her skin which suddenly became hypersensitive due to his closeness.

"No, not tonight, tomorrow in the daylight is the time for talking, for planning what we do next, how we fight the monsters inside and out."

She opened her mouth to argue to tell him there were things she wanted, needed to know, but he pressed his fingers firmly against her lips, his face unsmiling but the warmth clear in his eyes.

"No Vanessa. Not tonight. Tonight is about us. About you and me. It is our wedding night Mrs. Chandler and I don't want any damn thing to ruin it, including you with your questions."

She laughed and he smiled at the rich sound.

"Mrs. Chandler." She repeated it slowly savoring way the words sounded in her mouth. She loved the sound it resonated with a natural rightness.

His smile widened for a second and then vanished again quickly and a ghost seemed to pass over his face.

"Yes, Mrs. Chandler – for now."

Her eyes widened at that and a frown creased her brow – what did he mean –for now?

He caught the look and pulled her into the safety of his embrace.

"Oh Van, I have so much to tell you, to explain and I will, I promise tomorrow to tell you everything. Chandler as I am sure you've worked out by now is a name I use, not the name I was born with – but it will serve for now. I will not pollute you, us with my true name tonight. Please just trust me. I love you with all my heart, trust in that – Mrs Chandler."

She nodded then and finally his face came down and his mouth claimed hers in the kiss that had been interrupted before. Her mind continued to turn with questions, with thoughts but it became increasingly difficult to rationalize under the gentle assault of his lips that became more demanding. When his tongue swept over her lips she gave up trying to think and let herself drown in the exquisite sensation of him, parting her lips, giving him access to her mouth, her body responding to his, her hands coming up to run through his hair, to touch his face. Finally they broke apart and she was grateful to see the craving in his face which she knew was reflected in her own.

She was about to launch herself at him again to continue the kiss and force more from him when a loud gurgling punctuated the quiet of the room and she clutched her stomach which was rumbling with hunger of a different kind.

Her giggle was joined by his deep chuckle and a slightly salacious smile.

"I think my little wifey needs to be fed before I take her to bed. She needs to keep her strength up. I sure as hell don't want her passing out."

Her smile also widened and she slapped him affectionately across the chest but had to agree that the needs of her stomach and probably his needed to be met before anything more could happen between them.

Quickly she washed and bound the wounds on their palms and then, in gentle companionship similar to that they experienced when they had escaped to this place before, they warmed and ate the stew that she'd made earlier. Their hands touched each other constantly as they cooked and ate, for her a reassurance that he was actually there, that he wasn't just a figment of her want and need for him that the ritual between them had actually happened. But there was a difference. Before they'd always been an underlying tension between them, an attraction that she'd always tried before to deny despite his attempts to force it into the open on the night of the storm. But now it was something not to be repressed and she secretly relished the anticipation of their night together although there was beneath it a fear that she had to articulate.

After dinner she suggested they sat and shared a smoke before they headed up the stairs. He seemed surprised at her request, due to her previous eagerness but accepted it readily and together they settled onto the largest chair by the fire, two nights ago occupied by Mr. Lyle and she snuggled into his lap.

She lit the tip of the paper and inhaled the rich smell of the drug mixed with the tobacco was thick in the room. She leaned her head back against the broadness of his shoulder and waited for the soporiphic affects to take place but the usual, immediate calmness of that first lung full did not appear, the fears that had come to the forefront of her mind before becoming more prevalent and she passed it quickly into his hands her own returning to wrap around her waist. She watched through hooded eyes as he took a deep drag held the breath before exhaling through his nose his head wreathed in grey mist that made his dark eyes even more difficult to read. She expected him to pass the brand straight to her as he usually did – they had a rhythm but instead he leant over and placed it into the hearth. His hand reached for her face and he tipped her chin forward forcing her to meet his full gaze.

"Come on darlin', spit what's worrying you out." His calloused thumb gently stroked the flesh of her chin and she shivered slightly.

She tried to smile. "Nothing, I'm fine." But she could see by the quirk of his eyebrow that he hadn't bought her lie. She squirmed in his lap but he held her steady and brought his face closer to hers so their foreheads touched.

"Don't give me that. It might sound crude but half an hour ago you were eager as a coyote in heat and now you're as skittish as a filly. What's changed? What's worrying you?"

Embarrassment was something she had rarely suffered with but it came over her suddenly in waves and she found her cheeks growing hot and again she tried to break his gaze but he would not let her forcing her to look deeper into his eyes.

She couldn't think of where to start, how to form the words, how to tell him the truth of what lurked in the most frightened corners of her brain. She knew that he knew that she was no virgin and also that was not an issue for him, his past with Brona had proved he had no problems with female sexuality, even promiscuity – he was no hypocrite. Although never discussed she had seen the ghost of other lovers in his eyes and did not turn away from the knowledge that they like her own had been many and varied.

"I'm frightened." She almost whispered it.

For a moment he went still, his heavy brows creasing together in a frown and she could see the questions forming in his eyes – of him and what he became, of sex? Then suddenly realisation hit him. She half expected him to laugh but instead he took her face gently between his palms, this thumbs following the familiar patterns over the ridges and hollows of her face.

"Of what might come out." It could have been a question but he knew the answer and continued, his voice soft but full of determination and love. "Nothing will hurt you while I am here. Nothing will come between us tonight or any other night. I have sworn to protect you and I will. I know now this is the purpose of my life. Nothing will get through Van I swear it. And even if it did I don't fear it now. I promise I will keep you safe. I know that…" he paused, searching for a suitable word, "…intimacy has been the catalyst before but this will be different, we together are different."

She could see the belief, honesty and pure love glowing in his eyes and she could not help the tears that welled up and fell from her own which he brushed away with those every ready thumbs. His mouth descended to hers and it was as if he was sealing his promise in that soft kiss.

She smiled finally forcing the fear down. She did trust him and had to trust in herself, in her love for him. She gracefully uncurled her body and stood facing him and taking his head pulled him up and began leading her husband towards the stairs pausing only to turn out the oil lamp, blow out the candles, taking a single one with them to light their way.

Once reaching the tiny upstairs room she placed the candle upon the table by the bed and then returned to him bringing her body close but not so close so they were touching. Gently she lifted her hand to his chest and undid the topmost button of his shirt delicately moving her hand down to open the other buttons. She watched his reactions the hitch of his breath, the bunching of the muscles at his jaw, the darkening of his already umber eyes. When they were fully open he shrugged the material off his shoulders to pool into the darkness of the floor. Greedily she moved her hands to run them over the muscles of his chest trailing them in gentle circling movements learning the hills and hollows of his torso fascinated by the textures. She trailed her fingers over his clavicle as she slowly walked around him to face his back. Her fingertips ghosted over the skin tracing the patterns of scars on his back her lips soon joining them feeling under her ministrations as his skin shivered. She ran her fingertips down his sides till they reached the waistband of his trousers and then traced the skin just under marveling at the difference in texture and the soft, downy hair she found as she circled round to his stomach. She was rewarded by a ragged intake of breath as she began to undo the buttons of his fly feeling the hardened flesh beneath the cloth of his trousers. On the last button his hand clutched at hers and he pulled her round back to face him. The tension and craving in his face was palpable and she knew he was exerting every ounce of his control that he was coiled and probably wanted to grab her, throw her to the bed and just fuck her and part of her wanted that too. But he had said and she needed this to be different, their coming together as man and woman, as lovers, as husband and wife would not be a hurried affair a frantic tumble of bodies but something purer, something akin to worship.

He too raised his hands then to work the long line of tiny buttons that graced the front of the white gown she wore open and all the time she looked in to his eyes, studying their depths, learning their nuances of colour and how they changed in the light how the passion in them for her was almost tangible.

His hands then gently pulled the front open so the dress rippled gracefully to the floor, a pool of lightness to join his shirt and she stepped out of it to stand naked in front of him.

She felt no shyness as his warm gaze stroked her body, admiringly and no words were needed by him to tell her she was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

In silence, never breaking gaze she walked over to their bed and lay down on top of the quilt and he never breaking gaze removed his trousers and walked towards her to join her there, easing his long, hard body next to hers, skin to skin, love to love.

Throughout the darkening hours they learnt each other's bodies the touches of fingers, hands, lips and mouths gentle but becoming firmer more assured and as the candle burnt down, their lovemaking unhurried and almost worshipful. Throughout his eyes never left hers, his mouth whispering reassurances of adoration and care and when finally he entered her and moved inside her she felt nothing but him caught as she was in the gilded net of his love. And even when it became too much, the pleasure was such that she could see nothing but white it was only him and finally she felt safe.

After, long into the darkness, when they lay sated side by side, fingertips still vibrating over each other's skins, lips still meeting in soft kisses she felt within herself a sense of fulfilment, of peace that she'd always craved but never had before.

She raised her hands to his face to run her fingers tips over every part almost with her touch transcribing it, her lips curving into a smile as his gaze softened even more.

"Well, that's a first darlin'." His voice was warm but with a hint of humour and she quirked an eyebrow at him which he drew his thumb over and brought his head down to rub her nose with his.

"Meaning?"

"That, my dear, darlin' Mrs. Chandler is the first time I've ever made love."

She laughed grinning up at him and then pulled a teasing frown.

"And the last. Unless it's to me."

His hands cupped her face, his nose rubbing against hers again and his voice warm, deep and soft rumbled in the air between them.

"Only ever to you."


	8. Chapter 8

Twice in that long night they had woken and reached for each other in the dark their need for the other insatiable after the months of denial and then separation. She had never experienced a lover like him before, the tenderness of his loving underlain with a passion fierce and wild and in perfect unity with her own. The way her pleasure and completion was as important as his own. With the other men she'd laid with she'd always felt a lack of control – it was not always of her choosing –she'd been unable to deny what was underneath, the scratching and need of another presence. With Ethan it was her choice and hers alone, the demon feared him, feared them together and had for now retreated. She was free to love and make love without restraint, at least with him. She prayed that it would always continue thus but could not believe that she would be that blessed even as a result of the ritual they'd performed.

The pale winter sun was high in the sky when she woke again and quickly registered that he was no longer in bed with her, however she realised that he was close by the noises coming from downstairs. Luxuriously she stretched her naked body enjoying the caress of the slightly rough sheets. The tenderness she felt between her legs was a welcome reminder of how he'd loved her through the night. She lifted the sheet to look at her body studying the faint traces his passion had left on her skin from his mouth and fingers. Never had she felt more stated and never had she felt so happy – a pure, unfamiliar feeling. She giggled to hear him slightly tunelessly whistling – something she'd never heard before and evidence of his obvious happiness and contentment.

"Ethan cease that dreadful din and come back to bed, I need you."

She heard his deep chuckle and her mouth stretched in a wide smile at his gruff answer.

"Hold your horses you wanton strumpet I'm busy."

Suppressing her own laugh she tried to make her voice sound offended. "I have no idea what you can possibly mean Mr. Chandler. The only reason I require your presence is that I am cold. You need to lift your uncultured American mind out of the gutter sir."

"Uncultured eh? Well I don't remember many complaints about my lack of culture last night or in the early hours of the morning either Mrs. Chandler." And by the end of that sentence he was standing at the top of the stairs holding a tray and frowning with mock severity at her. Quickly she scooted over as far as she could in the small bed lifting the sheets so that after he'd balanced the tray on the table by the side of the bed he could slip back in to join her.

He immediately gathered her into his arms pulling her against his body cool against her warmth finding her mouth with his and kissing her possessively. The fingers of desire which resided only just below the surface crawled through her body as he deepened the kiss, nipping at her bottom lip. She too could feel the physical evidence of his burgeoning desire through the thin cotton of the sleeping trousers he'd donned to go downstairs. He broke the kiss to rub the stubble that graced his cheek down the long line of her neck eliciting a faint gasp of pleasure from her and bit gently down on the sensitive spot where her neck joined her shoulders laving the sting away with the soft wetness of his tongue.

"So I presume that you aren't interested in the cup of tea I've made you," he whispered against the skin of her shoulder as she arched her body humming with pleasure against him.

The word 'tea' however was enough to break through the heady intoxication of desire and she extracted herself from his grasp leaning over his body to snare one of the mugs that he'd bought up moments before and noting he'd also included some bread and cheese. He brushed a kiss against her hair and murmured something about being less desirable than tea but she could hear the amusement in his tone. She sat back in the circle of his arms to sip at the refreshing brew her mind wandering back to the events of the previous day. The ceremony had been more beautiful than she could ever have imagined and had been more fulfilling and more binding than a conventional marriage ever would have been, of that she was sure. After all they were hardly a conventional couple – a werewolf and a woman destined to be the Mother of Evil. She could imagine how that would go down in the drawing rooms of polite London society! Even the sudden appearance of Hecate had done nothing to sully the sacred nature of their joining and had proved their conjoined power, again together they had defeated an agent of evil. But now there were other battles to face. The letter from Sir Malcolm brought several days ago by Mr. Lyle spoke of worrying events taking place back in London. They'd been reports of several disappearances and their friend the Doctor in some way was implicated although the details were sketchy. Vanessa knew that their blissful sojourn would soon need to end, that their presence was required in that demi-monde in which they seemed unable to leave behind. Here on the moors was true reality but they would soon have to relinquish it. However they still needed to deal with what would happen that night when the moon was full. Would the binding hold, would the wolf recognise her as his mate or attack and if he did accept her how would he react to her presence? What could the closeness of a bound mate mean to Ethan in his changed form? All of these questions needed answers and she could feel herself tensing up, her previous calm fading away under the pressure of what was to come. He seemed to feel the change of her mood radiating through her body into his and he took her empty mug from her, taking her shoulders turned her to face him.

"I know what you're thinking and you're right we need to talk but I can't concentrate here with you looking like this," his warm eyes trailed down her naked body, "and I need to. Get dressed, we'll talk this out downstairs and then.." he paused his look turning sly his eyes twinkling, ".. let's resume what your thirst for tea stopped."

She smiled at that and allowed him to slip from the warmth of their bed, pull on a jumper and trousers and pad downstairs taking the tray with him. Reluctant to leave the warmth of the bed and the memories it held of the previous night she climbed out finding a skirt, chemise and cardigan to pull over her nudity and following him down after attempting bring some order to her tangled hair. She noticed that he'd banked up the fire which was burning brightly, replenished her tea and was sitting on the settle having just lit a hashish cigarette.

He handed it to her as she joined him on the settle tucking her feet which had chilled in the trip downstairs just under his thigh to warm and drew the drug deep into her lungs. She passed it back to him and then opened the conversation that they'd both been avoiding but with every minute that past was becoming more urgent.

"Ethan, tell me what is going to happen tonight when you change."

He closed his eyes and she could see his distaste at discussing his curse mirrored on his handsome face. His long fingers flexed and tensed against the cloth of his trousers finally turning into fists which tremored slightly.

"I don't rightly know because I don't remember. I never remember what actually happens it's like my brain shuts down to save me the horror of the transformation. All I know is in the moments before I black out I just feel. It's like every nerve in my body explodes and every base feeling comes to the fore. In those seconds I want to beat the shit out of something or fuck it. Sembene..." and at the mention of his friends name a look of pure pain shadowed across his face, "told me the change is almost instant as soon as the moon shines on me and that in that instant I attack. So tonight before the moon rises I'm going to shackle myself in the shed behind the cottage. There is an iron ring set into the floor which is strong and should keep me contained. You need to stay in here with the door bolted and my gun loaded. Once I've changed and you are sure the shackles have held you can come in and see if the bonding worked – see what I do, but you must keep back. Don't try and touch me."

She listened intently to what he said but her agile brain found flaws in his plan and the idea of him being shackled worried her intensely. The sight of those cruel marks on his wrists and ankles, his flesh flayed almost to the bone on the days and nights she'd cared for him after Sir Malcolm had found him were vivid in her memory and faint marks still encircled them even now probably never to fully fade.

"Ethan. I love every part of you, the man you are and also the wolf you become and with that love comes trust and I trust both sides of you. I fear that shackling could cause both of you great anguish, remind you of things that you are not really ready to face," she could see by the clenching of his jaw that he knew she was referring to his time in the asylum, "and could due to your pain enrage him. That will surely make him more of a danger. Surely we want the transformation to be as stress free as possible. I know you want to protect me but I believe that he does too. I think that you should be free when you change and I should be there."

"For fuck sake Vanessa you know what I become and you saw firsthand what I did to enemy and friend alike. There is no God damn way I am allowing you anywhere near me unless I can be sure I won't hurt you." He gripped her shoulders and she could see the pain in his eyes his voice rough with what she recognised as fear.

She placed her hands on both sides of his head and looked deep into his dark eyes.

"You said it yourself that a wolf will never hurt its mate. What we did yesterday and last night has made me that, wife and mate. We are bound now and that bonding will hold true. You need to trust in your beliefs my love and your love for me. As I said I trust both of you. You will not, you cannot hurt me. I know that bone deep. You will recognize me as you did before."

"But that was after I'd killed two people, satisfied the blood lust that I believe strikes at the change. I might have no control. I might just strike out. Sembene was my friend, probably the closest friend I've had and yet I still killed him without thought. I can't risk it Van and you can't ask me to take that risk. I need to be 100% sure that on the change I am unable to hurt you and I am not just talking about killing you. Last night when we made love I could feel him inside me close to the surface in a way that's never happened before with anyone else even when I'm coming down from the change and need to rut. I think he desires you too, craves you. When wolves mate it is brutal, a battle of teeth and claws. I can't subject you to that, remember it won't be me. You wouldn't survive unhurt physically or mentally – there would be scars. It would be like a rape and what would that do to us? No, I need to be shackled and alone."

The determination in his voice was undeniable and most people would have been cowed by the strength of his convictions but Vanessa Chandler was not most people. Her faith in him was absolute as was her belief in their connection. She could not see him shackled like an animal and if that had to happen she would be there and close to sooth him.

"Then a compromise has to be reached." She released his face and stood up facing him. "I will shackle you tonight just before the moon rises but I will be there when you change. I will not leave you alone and I will stay close." She ignored his protest and continued. "Otherwise how do we know if the bonding worked? We went through this for a specific reason Ethan, not that I wouldn't have done it whether it was needed or not. If it does work, and I know it will it will enable me to know how to deal with what you become – what I need to do that we can lose the shackles."

She lifted her hand showing him the healing cut running across her palm and then kneeling in front of him took his hand where the cut was much less noticeable.

"My blood runs in yours as yours does in mine. There is no stronger bond than blood. Blood sustains us and this link will protect. Ethan I will not leave you alone, now or ever. I thought once I'd lost you and it almost killed me. Do not deny me your presence – either of them, please my love. Have faith. Trust in us, in what we've done and what we are to each other."

She saw his resolve crumble under her argument and her love. She felt a slight hint of guilt at using his abandonment of her but knew without it, it would be harder to break his resolve. His face softened and he raised his hand to brush his thumb over her cheek bone.

"God damn you woman, you and your faith. After everything I've done all I've put you through and your faith and trust never wavers. What have I done in my cursed life to deserve you? My sins lie like a devil on my back and yet you make me feel like I can be forgiven that I deserve absolution. I can deny you nothing. Tonight you will shackle me and then stay as I change. But I need you to promise me one thing that you will have my gun and if I attack you will defend yourself. Promise me Vanessa or I walk out onto the moors, lock you inside here and will not come back until morning although it will kill me to do it."

His fingers bit down into her shoulders and she saw in his eyes that there was no further negotiation.

She nodded.

"I promise."

A breath of relief tore out of his lungs and he lent back against the settle his eyes closing. She watched him for a few moments, etching his face and form into her brain forever, committing him in that instant to memory. The man she loved, her husband, her mate, her Ethan. The darkness and moonlight and what that would bring was mere hours away but in that moment he was bathed in light and she could believe that everything would be fine.

His eyes lazily opened under her intense scrutiny as if he could feel her and he leaned forwards towards her again, pulling her up beside him on the settle. He brought his face close and rubbed his nose against hers and along her cheek and she felt the passion in her rise again.

"So Mrs. Chandler has your need for tea been sated for the moment?" His voice rumbled deep inside his throat and she gasped as his lips travelled down over her cheek to capture her ear lobe in his mouth.

"Yes." The word came out on a moan as his teeth bit down into the soft flesh.

And with that she felt her body swept up to be captured against his heart and he turned towards the stairs.


	9. Chapter 9

His love making had been tinged with an urgency and desperation that she had not felt before. It was almost as if he'd been trying through the touch of his hands and lips to commit her body and soul to him, to consume her, absorb her essence, to cleave her to him, to make her safe. She had tried to still him, to reassure him as she moved under him, his mouth hard on hers, his flesh joined to her of her faith, her total belief in him. She'd given him total control of her body and thus her pleasure allowing herself to become totally undone in a way she'd never allowed another lover to experience. She'd opened herself totally to him tearing down every defence laying herself bare demonstrating her trust and yet she knew it was not enough he was still afraid of what was to come.

He lay asleep now and she relished the opportunity to see him like this. He looked younger; she could almost see the hopeful boy he'd once been, the strains of his life, his crimes, his curse seemed to lay easier on his handsome face. He seemed at peace; a reflection of her own. The scars of misuse had all but faded and together they had begun to heal those on his soul although she knew he would never been totally free of them and in the darkness of the night he would still awake in terror except now she would be there to sooth him – she would always be there.

She could feel the light changing, fading and knew that she only had mere moments left to savour this time before they would have to face another fight, maybe their most deadly. She wished that she had the power to freeze time. To lay there, her body pressed to his strength, the feel of his breath on her skin, his face at repose and although she missed the warmth of his beloved eyes, she would give that away if it meant that she could stay in this moment for ever. But Vanessa Chandler was nothing if not a realist even though she had lived much of her life between the veil of reality and fantasy. Life had to continue, to run its course or to end and tonight would confirm that more thoroughly maybe than any other night she'd faced.

Gently she raised her hand to brush her knuckles down his jaw feeling the rough smoothness of his beard that had over the past hours grazed every part of her body. Her fingers lingered on his lips, those lips that had brought her tender flesh to the edges of ecstasy and over its brink. Finally she ran them down the smooth column of his throat lingering at the brown mole that graced his flesh that she'd licked and nipped at in her passion. His eyes flew open and she saw them glow warm, his mouth curving into a smile as involuntarily he pulled her against his body his mouth finding hers. But just as quickly she felt his body stiffen, his hand curl into fists against her back.

"It's time." It wasn't a question although it should have been, she wanted it to be so that she could deny the inevitable, that she could love him back to sleep and hold him through the nightmare of what was to come.

"Is it close?"

"He's waking." His voice sounded hollow and she ached for his pain for the desolation she heard in his tone.

"Is there any difference?" She tried to force down to a minimum the desperate hope she felt. She did not want to put him under any more pressure than she'd already done with her demands for that night.

Slowly he lowered his head his lips brushing against hers his curled hands relaxing to run up and down her naked back his fingers caressing the brand that marked her.

"I don't know, it's too early to say but we need to get ready."

He kissed her again deeply this time and she knew that with that kiss he was, as if it was needed, saying goodbye. That even after all they had done, some part of him believed that this could be the end.

"Have faith my love. Please believe in me, in you, in us. We will overcome this as we have everything else. You can't hurt me and he won't. Believe."

"I'm trying to believe it Vanessa, I really am but it's hard, so fucking hard for me to trust that this thing that I have no control over, that I don't even know, will do what I want him to do. When I asked you to marry me, when we went through the binding I believed it would be enough, but now the moment is here I feel like I've not done enough that somehow it isn't enough to keep you safe. Vanessa," he grasped her chin in between his fingers forcing her to look deep into his eyes which were dark with fear, "please darlin' reconsider. Stay here where you're safe. Let me change and then come when at least you can judge the situation from a safe distance. Don't run the risk of me hurting you."

She almost broke. How could she with the love she purported to feel so strongly for him deny him anything? But she knew her faith was stronger than his - it had been before and wouldn't diminish even under his attempts. His love for her made him vulnerable, the greatest different between them - hers for him made her undefeatable.

He gazed at her and she saw in the brown glow that he knew her answer. That she didn't have to say anything that she could not be turned away from the path she had decided to take when she had bound herself in blood and trust to him. His eyes closed for a moment and she bled inside for the pain she saw ripping across his features that she, along with his curse was causing him. His jaw tightened and the muscles in his throat rippled as if he were forcing down a great scream. But then they opened, his hands moved to cup her face and a smile of utter sadness ghosted over his mouth. She shuddered slightly as recollection washed over her. It was the same look he'd worn standing before her bedroom curtains just before he'd walked away to give himself over to the law and death at the end of a length of hemp.

Gently he kissed her forehead and then left the warmth of their bed. He dressed in silence and she watched him. It seemed so strange to be involved in such ordinary enterprises considering what they were about to face. She too got up and started to dress in the warmest clothing she could find lacing her feet into sturdy boots. He moved to the top of the stairs and paused there his eyes scanning the room which was ever darkening, lingering for a moment on the bed and then her. He held his hand out to her and she moved towards him grateful that he did not try again to dissuade her, that he had finally accepted her will.

Outside the dusk was upon them and they hurried over to the small shed set back behind the cottage. Rubbish was piled in the corners where Ethan had cleared the centre to reveal a large metal ring in the floor, possibly used in the distant past to tether an animal. Through the rings were the chains and manacles that the last time she had seem them had shackled Joan to the hideous tree and held her there whilst she burnt. Without warning she started to shake, the sight of them causing a pain to rip through her without warning and she turned and buried her face against his chest her arms wrapping around his waist. His hands came up to circle reassurances over the back.

"I know. I know what they mean, the past they bring back to you but it's all we have. It's these or you go back to the cottage now and lock yourself in until dawn." His voice was soft but she could hear the harshness in it. "We need to do this now Van. You've got to shackle me now."

Taking a deep breath she unwound herself and moved away from the warmth of his body. She could sense as well as see and hear his agitation, his muscles seemed to flex, his hands clutching and unclenching and his jaw tight with tension. Trying to block the feeling of the cold metal and its history from her thoughts she picked up the manacles and locked them round his wrists. He yanked and pulled on them with every ounce of his strength and then raised his eyes once more to hers.

"I love you."

"And I you Ethan." And she stepped forward to lay her hand over his heart. In her other hand she held the gun she'd removed from the holster at his waist her only defence against what was inside him should he attack.

And in that moment the light changed, the moon had risen and its silvery light seeped in through the open door.

She saw his eyes start change, the brown flooding with the glowing yellow of a feral animal before he dropped his head.

"I can't stop it, get out please Vanessa, get the fuck out." His voice was corrupted with the beginnings of an animalistic snarl.

Ever nerve in her body screamed for her to back away but she was a being of faith and so she stood firm her hand against the heart that raced under her palm. And then he raised his head and there in front of her was the mask of horror that she'd seen that night in the cellar of Evelyn Poole's house. A beast like visage lips curled back in a snarl over dagger like teeth. The poisonous yellow eyes full of hate, blank and for a split second unknowing. Growls rumbled deep in his throat tearing from his lips before a terrifying howl ripped from deep inside his body.

Unblinking she stared into his eyes and a knife edge of doubt crept into her heart – she was wrong and shaking she raised the gun in her hand. And then in the instant she pressed it against his chest she saw the shift she'd seen there before, a glimmer of recognition. He stilled his tense muscles lifting his head to breathe her in. His face registered confusion. She could see the conflict within him. His natural instinct to attack stayed by some other power that was stronger.

"Ethan, it's me, Vanessa your mate." She whispered the words calmly to the wild animal that had overcome him trying to sooth with her voice and presence. He shook his head from side to side. She could see the beast inside of him conflicted as he backed away and slowly she followed keeping her hand over his heart. After a few steps he stopped the snarling starting again as his whole body seemed to shake fighting itself and the animalistic instincts deep within him. Slowly she lowered her hand slipping the gun into the pocket of her coat, keeping her eyes on his all the time and released the manacles from his wrists feeling the coiled power there under her fingers radiating through his wrists. Then without warning she found herself forced to the floor and he was gone out into the darkness of the moors a howl echoing and in it she swore she heard the sound of triumph which matched her own. They had done it. The binding had worked, she was safe.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Dawn crept in through the window of the tiny bedroom gentle as a lover and with it walked Ethan Chandler. Any evidence of his night on the moors had been washed from his skin and his eyes shone with relief and unfallen tears to see his beautiful wife curled sleeping on the bed, safe and physically unharmed. He walked silently over kneeling down to run his hand, so recently clawed and murderous over her raven hair her wild scent as fresh and free as the moors he'd run on under the moon filling every sense as it had last night. Her lashes fluttered open and a wide smile stretched her mouth finding its way to the azure of her eyes. She grasped the back of his head with her own hand pulling it down so their foreheads met in the most loving of gestures.

"We won."


End file.
